Hello! I have a Sandisk Cruzer 4gb that Windows is refusing to detect.

It had the U3 rubbish on it, and I used the tool that U3 provides to delete it. During this process, which apparently involves removing not only the software that comes on the key drive, but also a partition, it froze. My only option was to restart: lol: .

After I rebooted my computer (XP pro sp2) I could not view the hard drive from My Computer. I can see that it shows up, in Computer Management and also in Hp USB disk formatting tool, but I cannot access it through My Computer. Also, I have tried reformatting it using Windows and the HP tool.

Every time I reboot, the drive letter I assign it in this process, and any name I give the drive does not show up. Have I killed this drive somehow, or is it a matter of formatting it properly and or figuring out if the partition still exists somehow. . . . I am pretty clueless!

Can't help you as I buy normal thumbdrives, but there is some good info at these sites.

http://www.u3.com/support/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U3

So it shows up in the my computer management area. Have you tried to reformat/repartition it through that? Occasionally harddrives/flashdrives also have to be initialized again and you can do that through the management area too.

Right click on your My Computer icon and choose Manage. A window will pop up, on the left, choose disk managment, then look to the right window to see if your usb drive there.

I have already tried formating it through the Windows Disk Management and with HP's USB Disk Formating tool, all with no success.

It will definatley show up under disk management, everywhere really excet under My Computer.

As a note, It seems as though the partition has been removed, as the MB amount seems to be spot on. I broke down and contacted Sandisk about this problem, as it seems to be unique due to the nature of the software involved. So, has anyone had experience with returning a Sandisk product? 8O

I tried plugging this thing into my computer at work, Windows XP pro sp1, and the computer immediatly SHUT OFF, as if I had caused a short somewhere. Luckily, I could reboot it, and when I did, with the drive still in the USB port, it showed up. . . sooo strange. But it still will not show up in my computer at home.

Thats definetely an odd problem. It may just be a really screwed up/faulty drive. I worked at a store that dealt with sandisk and they were always really good about their warranties, so good luck with that.

U3 drives are just normal hard-drive with U3 software installed.

The U3 autoplay software resides on a partition that is partitions with the CDFS files system so it is recognized as a CD. The rest of the drive is a normal data partition.

So once you delete the U3 partition you are left with a 100% normal drive.

If it doesn't work its probably broken.

Update, I have been working with sandisk's tech folks and I have reinstalled U3 (works) and re-uninstalled U3, and in both instances, the drive will work with a computer i have at work, and not very well with the one at home. I will be trying it on one more computer tonight, but I am starting to wonder if it has something to do with my personal computer. . . :?: (again, XP pro sp2)

The only thing I cannot do is view the drive via "My Computer" and make a drive letter stick

*UPDATE*

I have inserted a 32mb usb drive that I have been using for years now, and it has the same issues. I dont think this is a faulty USB drive. . . the problem has to lie somewhere else . . . I have installed, unistalled everything to no avail. . . grrrrrrr. . .

More than anything it appears to be a bad usb drive, I had SD cards show up but not read also

Since his old 32MB USB drive doesn't work either, looks like a problem with the MB USB port. I've had this happen on a not-super-great small-form-factor PC. After about 6 months of use, one of the USB ports started acting flaky: it seemed to know something was plugged into the port, but wouldn't recognize it as a USB drive, etc. I ended up junking the computer.

a add in usb card should fix the problem, inexpensive around $20 or so?

No free slots on the SFF; in any case, it was just symptomatic of the poor quality of the MB and computer. I went for a "bargain" when I should have stayed with Shuttle brand.