usb showing less than 20% of full size

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qwerty7

434 posts

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#108954 10-Sep-2012 11:28

I bet your instant thought was a cheap no-brand one i got on trademe? no.
I 1gb A-data one I have had for so long that it originally cost me about $60 - $70
As a side note I know I can just buy a new 8gb one for about $12 and that is not the issue I am more interested in finding out why it is happening.

Anyway, It is only showing 170mb available space. I re-formatted it nothing changed. I opened the partition manager utility (windows 7) and clicked on the partition then clicked delete now it still shows it has a 170mb partition but even after removing and re-inserting the flash drive + re-opening partition manager the delete button seems to have disappeared.. what next?

ubergeeknz

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Vocus

#683752 10-Sep-2012 11:33

I would say that, in technical terms, it's stuffed.

Have you tried it in a different PC, see what happens?

alexx

867 posts

Ultimate Geek

#683763 10-Sep-2012 11:52

qwerty7: I re-formatted it nothing changed.

Sometimes windows trusts the (wrong) information it is given when formatting.
You need to try something more extreme like completely wiping the partition table on the USB.

For example you can use the 'dd' command in linux or on windows use a low level formatting utility like the HP USB format tool. Search for HPUSBFW.exe which can be extracted from sp55500.exe which can be downloaded from the HP web site.

But as already mentioned, it's most likely stuffed.

#include <standard.disclaimer>

reven

3743 posts

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#683766 10-Sep-2012 11:56

my initial thoughts are its been partitioned in a way windows doesnt like, happens often if using a usb stick with linux stuff.

search diskpart, commands are like (off top of my head)

cmd (to opem command prompt, can just type "diskpart" into "run" if you like)
diskpart
list disk
select disk [number from above command]
clean
exit

then format again in the gui disk management

qwerty7

434 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#684600 11-Sep-2012 20:46

despite having 3 or 4 computers at one time i currently only have 1 + my phone.
used that command thanks reven, in the process of trying to sort out what to do next. I cleaned it and created a new primary partition, then formatted it but it still says 170 mb

.. I think the usb has been formatted by a mac

mattwnz

20164 posts

Uber Geek

#684604 11-Sep-2012 20:53

qwerty7: I bet your instant thought was a cheap no-brand one i got on trademe? no.
I 1gb A-data one I have had for so long that it?originally cost me about $60 - $70?
As a side note I know I can just buy a new 8gb one for about $12 and that is not the issue I am more interested in finding out why it is happening.?

Anyway, It is only showing 170mb available space. I re-formatted?it nothing changed. I opened the partition manager utility (windows 7) and clicked on the partition then clicked delete now it still shows it has a 170mb?partition?but even after removing and re-inserting the flash drive + re-opening?partition?manager the delete button seems to have?disappeared.. what next?

A-data isn't one of the top brands though, but it sounds like it has suffered a failure. . Kingston, San Disk etc are higher quality brands I think.

gzt

17137 posts

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#684612 11-Sep-2012 21:16

Yeah might be a failure but see what gparted says booted from CD-R.

grant_k

3539 posts

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#684621 11-Sep-2012 21:41

gzt: Yeah might be a failure but see what gparted says booted from CD-R.

+1

Gparted is the tool of choice for tricky situations like this. I was using it yesterday along with the HP USB Format Tool to try and make a USB stick boot Duet. To no avail unfortunately, but it is a very powerful Partition Editor which lets you make and format pretty much any partition type that exists anywhere.

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gzt

17137 posts

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#684637 11-Sep-2012 22:10

Stating the obvious to everyone that knows about the tool but it often gives insight into situations where Windows is fail.

To be fair on Microsoft maybe booting WinPE commandline from optical might give the same insights as gparted in some situations. But boy, what a heavyweight. I rarely do that on my own systems.

If you have both front and back usb ports give it a go front and back. Can't say I've had different behavior with flash drives but different usb controllers are not unknown.

qwerty7

434 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#684839 12-Sep-2012 11:23

tried hp format tool , still no luck

why do they fail , what happens

I believe it is probably fixable, as i say it was recently formatted with a mac so that might have something to do with it. Or maybe it is just stuffed.

Behodar

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#684849 12-Sep-2012 11:38

If it's been formatted on a Mac then it could be using GPT, which has a 200 MB "system" partition at the front of the disk. Windows may be reserving 30 MB itself; I'm not sure.

Athlonite

1828 posts

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Inactive user

#696190 4-Oct-2012 15:36

qwerty7: tried hp format tool , still no luck

why do they fail , what happens

I believe it is probably fixable, as i say it was recently formatted with a mac so that might have something to do with it. Or maybe it is just stuffed.

pretty much the same thing that happens to SSD's over time they only have so many write cycles before writing to the same sectors wears them out pretty much just throw it in the bin and buy a new one don't waste you time trying to fix the unfixable