memory - 16GB USB flash drive turned to 1GB after writing an ISO image onto it
2014-07
Rishat Muhametshin
I have a 16GB flash drive for almost seven years. It was all good before not long ago, when I tried to write a Ubuntu image onto it. I made it many times before and had no issues about. But this time, something happened, and my 16GB drive turned into 1GB. Any operating system on any computer I tried to use my USB drive with has shown me that it's strictrly 1GB and nothing to be changed.
I had a similar issue before, when this flash drive was somehow hurt by static so it wouldn't be recognized by any PC I plugged it into. That time, I used a utility to rewrite low-level chip so, as the latter contained information about what flash drive it appears (not true but similar: the drive is originally Kingston, but from that moment became Netac), the former would work again. I don't remember what that utility was but I'm pretty sure it provided options to turn any flash drive of A real storage size to A/k virtual storage size (perceived by a computer), where k≥1.
I remember that using this utility was risky since one only has exactly one chance to bring her flash drive back to life. I suppose it's worth risking in my case. After all, it isn't very expensive today to buy a 16GB usd flash drive. But I would rather scold myself to insanity for not trying.
Right this moment, I'm searching for that utility but cannot find it nor create a proper search query to help me do that. Please help me find the right utility. It may be for PC or Mac or Linux, doesn't matter.
Any disk utility app on Ubuntu or Mac (not to say of Windows) doesn't help me reach my goal. Those only can format or partition it but within the storage size perceived by an operating system, 1GB.
Karim
I have a Sandisk Cruzer 16GB USB flash drive, but it started to show up as 16MB. And I can't use it, it tells me that I need to format the drive or Please insert a disk into drive X. What software do I need to check the flash drive?
I can't format it since the format fails, and it shows as 16MB instead of 16GB.
Collin Allen
If all else fails, boot an Ubuntu CD, plug in the USB drive, and format it there. Ubuntu seems quite good at formatting things that Windows considers otherwise untouchable. Once formatted, eject and reboot into Windows and attempt to use it.
DSO
Many models of the SanDisk Cruzer flash drive come with U3 security software which you need to run to access the drive. The smaller partition contains the U3 software itself, so you can launch it from there.
U3 uses the rest of the space to store your data in an encrypted format.
Lee B
This sounds like a partition issue, but if you bought it from the likes of Japanese sellers on eBay, be aware that some people are selling tiny (possibly old/refurbished/rebranded) USB drives, which report their size as much more. I poked around one a few months ago, and it even acted like it was still working past its real size, but just got a lot slower, and didn't actually store the data. I've only seen this done with cheap looking drives and unbranded or unusual brand names; not faking a reputable brand/product like Sandisk's. I suspect they've done that too though, or will try it soon enough.
brasofilo
It seems like you have to allow and create a partition on your disk, if you are using windows, go to computer -> manage -> Disk management the right click your disk -> format and create a new partition, you can also check if it's inactive.
[Edit]
You need to delete the partition then allocate the space again, if this doesn't work, please post more details about your problem