SanDisk Cruzer 16GB (USB) problem

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
C

ChrisCMB

Distinguished
Mar 22, 2008
11
0
18,510
Hello,

I've just bought a SanDisk Cruzer USB flash drive with 16 GB of capacity. It's quite fancy in many ways, looks slick, nifty little slider to park the connector, shiny little red light, fantastic U3 applications that I'll never use, ... Which is all well, but in regards to its primary function which is data storage I'm finding it absolutely appalling.

The reason I bought such a big USB drive in the first place was because I needed to store an 8 gigabyte file on it, and when I try to transfer this file over it tells me that the disk is full. It's not full, as a matter of fact it's completely empty with windows seeing and recognizing 14.9 gigabytes of free space on it.

At first I thought it might be all that U3 junk on it so I formatted the drive: no difference. I reinstalled all the U3 jazz and started looking for a file transfer section or a write protect option somewhere, no luck. So I've reformatted the drive again since I'm not interested in any of the U3 utilities. I just want a functional 16 (or 14.9) GBs worth of storage on this USB drive.

The most I've been successful in copying has been 1.5 gigabytes. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm running on XP SP2.

Thanks.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
C

ChrisCMB

Distinguished
Mar 22, 2008
11
0
18,510
Thanks alot that solved it.

I had thought about trying to find a way to format it as NTFS instead of FAT32 but I didn't know enough about file systems to know that that's what was caping it.

Anyway, thanks again =)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
G

Guest

Guest
hi i have 16Gb sandisk and i forgot my pass , then i tried 3 times
and now its locked and i don't want my data but its wont be formatted and i tried every way i know (disk mang,xp boot format ,win7 boot format) can you help me plz ,,,,,thank you
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
K

kriswak66

Distinguished
Aug 4, 2011
1
0
18,510
I have a scandisk cruzer 16gb thumb drive. I am having a problem with mine and can't seem to format it.

I tried to move files to it and it failed. But now the disk shows that there is no free space. I have vista. I was able to get to a command prompt and tried doing a format f: /fs:NTFS

it came up with the following messages:

insert new disk for drive f:
and press ENTER when ready......

so i press enter because the stick is already in but it comes up with the following error message:

Error in IOCTL call.

When i try to just pull the drive up in Explorer window and right click it to do format... it never comes up with a window or anything to change to NTFS or do anything, nothing happens at all.

Any help you could give me would be sooo much appreciated. Please help I can't return it and I need to be able to store stuff on it.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
charlie cosmic

charlie cosmic

Distinguished
Jul 24, 2011
22
0
18,510
Sorry, I've just re-read the question.

It sounds like the drive is formatted for File Allocation Table 32- FAT32, which as a maximum of 4 gig storage.

Re-format the drive for NFTS for full use of the 14.9 gig

whoops :whistle:

Charlie C
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
S

satyam1111

Distinguished
Sep 12, 2011
1
0
18,510
hi i have 16Gb sandisk and i forgot my pass , then i tried 3 times
and now its locked and i don't want my data but its wont be formatted and i tried every way i know (disk mang,xp boot format ,win7 boot format) can you help me plz ,,,,,thank you
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
A

andygee33

Honorable
Feb 9, 2013
8
0
10,510
HANDY TIP..

USB devices do not like NTFS format - ever. Decreases the life of USB too much(4gb, 8gb, 16gb). After messing around with ex-fat and NTFS, I've decided to leave pen dives at FAT-32 for a good reason. It's fine for a pen drive to take a while reading/writing - just know it's doing it properly. NTFS is for real disk drives only and ex-fat is for old pen drives commercing large files to a newer computer. If otherwise, i'd suggest keeping formats default unless you're a real pro. I've been through many pen drives, but after reverting to Sandisk 'with' defaults kept, I've made this one(4gb, £5) last 2 years (daily use) without any problems on.. win98(don't ask!)

When in doubt, LEAVE IT ALONE!

True story bro.. ;)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
R

rajeskrishna

Honorable
Apr 11, 2013
1
0
10,510
I highly doubt the original poster still has this issue. But this will help if some one is looking for similar problem.

Sometimes a 16 GB USB drive will show only 4 GB or less (depends) and locks off the remaining space. Even windows disk management won't let you delete or create any partitions to the locked space. This is due to the partition info stored to the track0 of the drive. If data loss is fine with you, then you can recover the entire USB space using DiskPart (windows disk partition tool). Type DISKPART in RUN window and it will open a command prompt with DISKPART> cmd line.

Type LIST DISK --> shows ur disk drives. Find the USB drive (eg Disk 1 or disk 2)
Type SELECT DISK 1 -> this will select Disk 1 and any further operation u perform will happen on this disk
Type CLEAN -> This will clean the device / disk information stored to the Track0 of the USB Disk.
Now format the Disk to FAT32 adn u will get all your disk space back.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
D

danziel

Honorable
Jun 7, 2013
2
0
10,510


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
D

danziel

Honorable
Jun 7, 2013
2
0
10,510
check the properties of the device.you can only transfer 4gb of data onto any device if the device is fat32.convert the device to ntfs and the data transfer is unlimited
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
F

franfb

Honorable
Jul 18, 2013
1
0
10,510


Thank you very much for this solution! I spent 2 days trying to format my sandisk cruzer 32gb as NTFS in Windows 7, using several solutions described in forums and official websites, and some applications too, but the GParted Live CD saved my life! Once started I only had to select the usb device at gparted (which in my case was /dev/sdc but I recognized it because of the size, almost 30GB) and right-click, format, ntfs; click on apply and that's all! 2 days of nightmare ended in 33 seconds, literally!! Totally recommended!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom