Finding the name of a USB volume

[Phil Davis]

Here is an simplified 'system_profiler' output approach. It returns one 
tab-delimited line of info per detachable USB storage device, with all 
the data items known to system_profiler for each device. NOTE: It 
expects system_profiler output to be in English.


function macUsbDrives
    -- get USB device info from system profiler
    put shell("system_profiler -detailLevel full SPUSBDataType") into tData

    -- convert data to one line per USB device
    replace (colon & cr & cr) with numToChar(245) in tData -- device name
    replace (cr & cr) with numtoChar(250) in tData
    replace cr with tab in tData
    replace numtoChar(245) with (colon & tab) in tData
    replace numtoChar(250) with cr in tData

    -- remove records for all but USB drives (English data only)
    filter tData with "*Detachable Drive: Yes*"

    -- remove space-padding from items in each line
    set the itemDel to tab
    repeat for each line tLine in tData
       repeat for each item tItem in tLine
          put word 1 to -1 of tItem & tab after tNewData
       end repeat
       put cr into last char of tNewData
    end repeat
    delete last char of tNewData

    -- return the data
    return tNewData
end macUsbDrives

HTH -
Phil Davis



On 1/6/10 5:50 PM, Phil Davis wrote:
> On 1/6/10 3:31 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
>> tsj wrote:
>>> Richard - I haven't got an unnamed USB drive handy to test this with 
>>> but
>>> what does the volumes function return when one is mounted? Does this 
>>> give
>>> you the expected "untitled" (or "untitled 1" etc)?
>>>
>>> If so, you could iterate through the listed volumes using a couple of
>>> applescripts to determine whether the drive was local (false if it's a
>>> network drive) ejectable (false if it's internal) and then if you 
>>> get two
>>> false results you can attempt to open a file on the volume. If that 
>>> gives
>>> you an error then the drive is write protected. If it passes all 
>>> tests then
>>> you're left (presumably) with an external USB or Firewire drive.
>
> The "passes all tests" list can also includes mounted .dmg files.
>
> Thanks for posting this - very helpful.

-- 
Phil Davis

PDS Labs
Professional Software Development
http://pdslabs.net