Missing space on flash drives

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Level 1

100 points

Missing space on flash drives

I have a flash drive which doesn't seem to work with my computer. It is a SanDisk Cruzer 1.0GB which, when inserted in my MacBook Pro, Finder says "0 items, Zero KB available" at the bottom. However, when this is plugged into one of my school's PCs, it works fine and files (Word, Excel, PDF, etc) stored on this flash drive can be opened by and copied to my MBP (Finder will display, per say, "5 items, Zero KB available"). It was given to me as a present about a year ago, so I can't return it. I have had two PNY Attaché (512MB and 2GB) which worked properly as well as several other peoples' flash drives. Thanks in advance for any help/comments!

-AHeneen

MacBook Pro 15", Mac OS X (10.5.2), 2.4Ghz, 2GB, 160GB HD, Boot Camp w/Vista, 30GB iPod, 2GB iPod Nano

Posted on Jun 8, 2008 9:52 PM

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Answer 1

Allan Jones

Level 9

78,272 points

Jun 8, 2008 10:18 PM in response to AHeneen

Insert the drive and open Disk Utility. See if the drive shows up in DU's left-hand pane that lists detected drives. If it does, then highlight it and look at the bottom of the pane for the format type. I recall my two PNYs were FAT32, and a generic "gimme" 1G drive handed out at a trade show showed FAT16. Both work on all our OSX Macs including the MBP.

Post the format and we'll see where to go from there.

I reformatted both my PNYs as Mac drives because I never needed to share files with a Windoze machine. I left the "gimme" drive as it was in case I actually have need to share files with the "Dark Side."

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Answer 2

S.U.

Level 6

9,601 points

Jun 8, 2008 10:26 PM in response to AHeneen

The flash drive is likely formatted for PC's only and not for Macs. It may be possible to reformat it using Disk Utility. I believe that there is a format that can be used for both Macs and PC's, but I don't know what that format is. The format for Mac only would be Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I also believe that the drive would need to be erased before being reformatted, so you would want to retrieve any data before trying this.

Good luck!

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Answer 3

Jun 8, 2008 10:45 PM in response to AHeneen

If you go to the Sandisk support site there is an app you can download and run (in Windows) to erase all the Windows specific stuff and make it a plain USB drive. Some of this can't be erased in a Mac. Can't remember the details now but I had a lot of trouble getting my two Cruzers working as I wanted in my Macs, initially, until I went to the Sandisk site.

The prog you get from Sandisk is called something like U3 Launchpad removal.

One cleaned you can still format them FAT for cross platform use.

I recently bought an Integral USB flash which came divided into two volumes one password protectable, one public, with a windows prog that sets the password (in Windows only) and alters the ratio. Integral Tech support said there is absolutely no way to get this into one plain volume.

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Answer 4

AHeneen Author

Level 1

100 points

Jun 9, 2008 12:57 AM in response to Allan Jones

I accidentally marked the second reply as "solved" when all the responses should be "helpful". When I inserted the flash drive in question (which was SanDisk not PNY) Finder opened and displayed the same "0 files, Zero KB Available". I closed Finder and opened Disk Utility. It showed up as "973.8 MB SanDisk U3 Cruzer." I thought it odd that the size would show up. I right clicked the icon for it on the desktop and it showed this capacity (also, it's formatted MS-DOS FAT-16). Oddly enough,I opened finder and the bottom read "0 files, 970.4 MB available"...that was it, I changed nothing about the drive in Disk Utility. To be on the safe side I erased it using Disk Utility in order to erase the Windows-only software on it (I remember a U3 window showing up on it when using Windows), and reformatted it to "Mac OS Extended" (which Help said was most common). I assume this means it will no longer work with Windows, but I have 2 other flash drives which work fine (one to keep in my room, one for my backpack), and this one can serve as a backup for anything I don't need to share with another computer. The only problem with this is that Disk Utility lists its capacity as 973.4MB, but only 950.2 is available. However, a mere 20 MB is nothing for me to care about as I will likely never need to fill up the entire drive.

As a side note, the main use of my flash drives is to share files with Windows, unfortunately, as I need to share files with fellow students as well as school computers. As an engineering student, almost all software I need to use is only available for Windows (there's less-popular PC/Mac alternatives, but we don't use them) and so I am just about the only student with a Mac (in my discipline, at least). Someday, when OS X has 90% marketshare I won't have these irritating, little compatibility issues.........someday!

And of course...thank you all for your help and quick responses!

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