Thread: Trouble With Generic USB Flash Drive ...........

Try re-formatting it in NTFS format. If using a Windows OS on your computer, go to My Computer, right click on the name of the stick drive as shown, and the drop down menu should show the Format option. Don't use FAT32 option

regards,
Jill

Yup, sounds like a plan, in Windows Explorer, right click on the drive & select Format.

If you format in NTFS, you may not be able to read/write to it in non-PC applications - the FAT32 file system is a freebie from Microsoft; you have to pay them royalties if you want the specs to read/write NTFS, so most non-PC usb-device-using devices stick with FAT32.

However, the maximum file size you can have with FAT32 is 4 gigabytes; larger than that and the file system runs out of fingers and toes to count on, and it can't address the data (literally, the limit is (2^32)-1, or just one byte less than 4 gig).

So - if your files are lager than 4 gig, go NTFS, but don't expect to read it with your hard drive video recorder or usb enabled printer or other non-computer devices.

I knew that !! ..... he he he

Originally Posted by Master Splinter

However, the maximum file size you can have with FAT32 is 4 gigabytes; larger than that and the file system runs out of fingers and toes to count on, and it can't address the data (literally, the limit is (2^32)-1, or just one byte less than 4 gig).
So - if your files are lager than 4 gig, go NTFS, but don't expect to read it with your hard drive video recorder or usb enabled printer or other non-computer devices.

That just about sums it up perfectly.

You could always buy one of these though. 256Gbyte capacity flash drive. but a bit costly.

A guy at work bought some MP3 players and USB drives which *REPORTED* that they were a certain capacity, but threw up weirdness when they got over 1/4 full. Reformatting and so forth had some saying one capacity to one tool, and a much smaller capacity when using lower-level tools.

Seems some unscrupulous manufacturers and/or sellers fiddle things so that devices report their capacity as being a lot more than it actually is.

If the technical approach doesn't resolve things, then this scenario may apply.

Cheers,
Andrew

Thanks all for your input,so cheap is not always good and i guess as the sellers are in china they feel safe from unhappy customers.I will pass this on to my computer man and see what he can do for me....... thanks again. Tasman

I go tone of those (. Mine was a 16GB drive that was actually only 2GB. You could easily copy up to 16GB of data to it, but anything over 2GB was lost or corrupt. Best way to snif it out is with a program called h2testw. You'll find it easily if you Google it. Basically it writes data to the full capacity of the drive, and then reads it back to see if it is corrupt. In my case, 2GB read back perfectly and the rest was corrupted (it just read back 00000000 for every byte). Then you know what the size really is. In my case I was able to get back my money and postage costs (including return postage) from the seller in China.

Good Luck

Peter

i have never owned one that held its memory. usually you get about 25% of what it says. i could never get any explanation for it. i notice that the vista Readyboost seems to find it though. let me know if you find the reason for it.

You may get some slight under-reporting of size because they are sold by marketing, who count in base ten, but they are designed by engineers, who count in base two. ie - we say that 1k means 1,000, but to the computer, it means 1,024 - so your newly purchased 1.0 terrabyte hard drive is going to be only about 0.93 of a terrabyte in reality.

• Megabyte Difference = 48,576 Bytes
• Gigabyte Difference = 73,741,824 Bytes
• Terabyte Difference = 99,511,627,776 Bytes

But the undersized/overreported flash drive scam is an old one - this page has been on ebay since 2006:

eBay Australia Guides - BEWARE of FAKE 16GB 32GB 64GB USB Flash Drives on eBay

Thanks for the info again it is all quite interesting how some company's can scam items with out a thought of right from wrong ...... it is a sad world we live in.I did a test on a 8 gig and had 1.9 gig which was ok and the 16 gig had 3.8 gig ok so i am now satisfied i have been scammed. Thanks again for your help it is appreciated. Tasman