LeWench Posted August 2, 2008 Share Posted August 2, 2008 Hello, I don't really know what exactly I might have done, but I bought a 16G Scandisk and now it says there is not 3G total space. It does not recongnize that its supposed to have 16G total. Is there something I might have done? How can I reverse this? It would suck that I messed this up and now it only reads 3G. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emeryth Posted August 2, 2008 Share Posted August 2, 2008 Calm down, it is impossible to mess up a flash drive. What have you exactly done to it? Try to reformat it, but remember to use FAT 32, not FAT 16. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted August 2, 2008 Share Posted August 2, 2008 1) Did it ever show 16GB? 1) Yes: Format it. As Emeryth said, use NTFS or FAT32. 1) No: Proceed to question 2. 2) Did you buy it on eBay? 2) Yes: It's probably fake. Bad luck. 2) No: Format it using HP's USB format tool or boot a virtual machine with it mounted as a hard drive, delete all the partitions, repartition with only one partition, format again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeWench Posted August 3, 2008 Author Share Posted August 3, 2008 1) Did it ever show 16GB? 1) Yes: Format it. As Emeryth said, use NTFS or FAT32. 1) No: Proceed to question 2. 2) Did you buy it on eBay? 2) Yes: It's probably fake. Bad luck. 2) No: Format it using HP's USB format tool or boot a virtual machine with it mounted as a hard drive, delete all the partitions, repartition with only one partition, format again. 1. Yes it showed 16G before, what I probably did or happened I do not know. 1a. Formatted it with FAT32 and NTFS, same problem persists 2. Not, bought at office depot 2a. Going to try the HP format tool, is there a name for it? What do you mean by Boot a virtual machine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 Calm down, it is impossible to mess up a flash drive. Not impossible, but hard to do accidentally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted August 3, 2008 Share Posted August 3, 2008 http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197 HP USB Format Tool... As for the virtual machine thing, if you boot an OS in VMWare and have the USB stick set as a HDD in the virtual machine then you get full access to the drive. See, you're not supposed to be able to partition flash drives in Windows and if you do it'll only show you the first partition and act like the rest of the drive doesn't exist. If you, for example, boot MSDOS in a virtual machine with the USB stick as a HDD then 1) the drive doesn't appear to be a USB stick and 2) MSDOS has a built in partitioner which you can use to do whatever you need to the drive. On saying that, you could probably just go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Disk Management, and in there see if the drive is partitioned. If it is, delete all the partitions and make a new one. Format this and you should be good to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DingleBerries Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 Ive done with a 1gig drive. 1 was dding a 512mb image to it. after that it only read as 512mb. Try gparted format the unformatted space.. try using windows built in disk manager as well.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve8x Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 Its probably impossible to mess up a regular flash drive! but what about a U3 Drive? When your flashing the CDROM partition it says do not plug it out or you may destroy the device! lol! Thats a nightmare I have! where I'm flashing the drive and the power goes out!! oh noes!!! Would a power outage that shuts off your computer while your flashing the u3 drive really ruin it forever? can't it just be re flashed properly? Anyway ever since I got my Cruzer U3 drive I haven't had any luck flashing a custom ISO anyway! Can anyone provide a link to a LPInstaller that has worked for them? neither leaving "cruzer-autorun.iso" in the same folder as LPInstaller or spoofing the u3 website to localhost is working for me! :( I'm just trying to flash it with a custom ISO of mine! And I didn't buy it off ebay or anyplace like that! I bought it brand new from dell it came in the mail last week. Cut it out of the plastic case myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snakey Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 i fixed the u3 on my Toshiba u3 2 gig you just dl the u3 update installer ;) gl though steve its a mission to get u3 back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve8x Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 I have u3! the u3 launch pad autoruns when I insert the USB drive! I never uninstalled it! I'm simply trying to run LPinstaller to overwrite the default "cruzer-autorun.iso" with my own! I don't care for the u3 launch pad software! In other words, instead of the U3 launch pad software autorunning when inserted, Instead I'd like a custom exe to be executed! I know the ISO has to be less than 6.66MB and that's not the problem my ISO is way less than that! maybe the ISO name has to be "U3 System"? I'll try that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeWench Posted August 7, 2008 Author Share Posted August 7, 2008 Update: Sorry I was out of town and forgot my flash drive to work on it. Now to buisness... - I installed VMware on my laptop and installed Windows XP, hooked up the flash drive still nothing. - I burned Gparted and booted that from my laptop, still reads 3g. - Installed HP USB Disk Storage Utility, still no luck. Updates with pictures: Anyone else have any ideas? Is there a U3 to flash on this flash drive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PileOfMush Posted August 7, 2008 Share Posted August 7, 2008 Give gPartEd a try. I think in short everyone is saying "use anything but Windows to repartition & format it". http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted August 7, 2008 Share Posted August 7, 2008 I think in short everyone is saying "use anything but Windows to repartition & format it" Pretty much, yeah. As much as I enjoy working with Windows, sometimes when you start hacking with things you go outside of what it's expecting - like multi-partition flash drives. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeWench Posted August 7, 2008 Author Share Posted August 7, 2008 GpartED was used as stated on my previous post. I guess the drive is done then? Is there a way to get U3 to redo the flash drive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nitro2k01 Posted August 7, 2008 Share Posted August 7, 2008 Have you considered the possibility that you might've bought a fake Cruzer drive? Alot of fake ones are on sale, particularly on ebay, but also in other places. Some chinese people have gotten the clever idea of buying low capacity drives, writing a corrupt file system to them which makes them look like the bigger capacity until you format it, then rebranding it and selling it. Did you ever copy more than 3 GB to your drive? If so, did you notice any file corruption or strange behaviour? Was that perhaps even the reason why you formatted it in the first place? If so you likely have a fake drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detox420 Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 Have you considered the possibility that you might've bought a fake Cruzer drive? Alot of fake ones are on sale, particularly on ebay, but also in other places. Some chinese people have gotten the clever idea of buying low capacity drives, writing a corrupt file system to them which makes them look like the bigger capacity until you format it, then rebranding it and selling it. Did you ever copy more than 3 GB to your drive? If so, did you notice any file corruption or strange behaviour? Was that perhaps even the reason why you formatted it in the first place? If so you likely have a fake drive. i have had the same exct issue with my 8gb cruzer with u3 i know it was real because i bought it from walmart and i had at one time had an 8 gig iso file on there. i formatted to install gonzors switchblade and since then its only been a 3 gig i used the universal customizer i would love to see a solution to this issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
operat0r_001 Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 disable that U3 crap http://www.u3.com/uninstall/ hope for the best use fdisk and wipe the thing by hand with gparted boot cd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve8x Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 has it happened to anyone else after formatting? their drive became smaller? I never formatted my drive I just left it the way it is! If its not broke don't fix it right? well two people have said that after they formatted it became 3 gig in size... So if other people have the same thing happened to them, it might be the formatting! maybe u3 has a special way of formatting it since it is unlike any other drive... So lets hear from some more people who have formatted their u3 drive! If its happened to everyone that's formatted I think its safe to say don't format any u3 drives you purchase... @opertator_001: disable that u3 crap? ha! that's the only reason I bought a u3 drive is for the U3 AUTORUN... You don't have to use the uninstaller to get rid of the u3 launchpad crap software... just overwrite the cdrom partition and its as good as gone, except you still get to keep the autorun functionality... People have said even if you use that uninstaller you can still use lpinstaller to get the autorun back, but some people have said it doesn't come back. So I figure its best not to risk it! ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DingleBerries Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Uninstall U3. Reninstall U3. Uninstall U3. Try that and see what happens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detox420 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 any updates? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nissin Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 I have had the same problem with my 8GB cruzer micro. The 3GB problem is very likely to be caused by the universal customizer. I've recover the lost space after uninstall/reinstall the U3 with the offical software from sandisk. U3 launch pad removal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve8x Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 3GB flat? or 3.76GB? I've used the universal customizer on my 4GB cruzer micro, and it reads 3.76GB... I don't remember what it was before I flashed it with a custom ISO, but im pretty sure it was never 4GB total... all hard drives/flash drives are like that, they say a certain amount like 500GB but its actually a bit less than that like 465GB so compared with both the numbers I'd say you get about about 6-7% less space than what is advertised! Why is it like that? why do they say 500GB when its 465GB in reality? lol well anyway maybe the universal customizer messes up with cruzer's larger than 4 GIG? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nissin Posted August 21, 2008 Share Posted August 21, 2008 3GB flat? or 3.76GB? I've used the universal customizer on my 4GB cruzer micro, and it reads 3.76GB... I don't remember what it was before I flashed it with a custom ISO, but im pretty sure it was never 4GB total... all hard drives/flash drives are like that, they say a certain amount like 500GB but its actually a bit less than that like 465GB so compared with both the numbers I'd say you get about about 6-7% less space than what is advertised! Why is it like that? why do they say 500GB when its 465GB in reality? lol well anyway maybe the universal customizer messes up with cruzer's larger than 4 GIG? I understand what you mean...Let's have a look. Left: Toshiba 4GB without U3 - 3.72GB Right: Sandisk 8GB Cruzer Micro flashed with a 644 MB ISO image using universal customizer - 3.01GB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jathur Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 Hello I'm french and I have the same problem. I have a Sandisk Cruzer Micro 8go. When I try to put my iso with Universal Custo, the size of my flash drive was reduce to 3.79 go If i remove the u3 lauchpad from my key, i have 7.48 go ( Normal) If I put the original sandisk launchpad Here it will be reinstalled and the capacity of my key is 7,48 go ( Exactly when i have bought ) I m sure it's Universal Customize who reduce the capacity, but what doing for ? Excuses me for my bad english Cordially Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jathur Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 I think i've find. After delete the Launcher, and reinstall with the official sandisk installer, I launch Universal customizer with my 2.8 go iso. It seems to be good, wait and i'll tell you until customize is finished Wait and see Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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