8gb pen drive - NOT!

i've just bought a usb 8gb pen drive.
after copying files to and from the pen drive i'm pretty sure it's actually a 2gb drive that has been made to look like an 8gb.
windows xp pro formats it fine, although it does "pause" at the very end.
it only allows fat32, not ntfs, and does not permit re-partitioning.
the partitioning software on a couple of live linux distro's does not even see the pen drive.
the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool formats it as fat32 but ntfs fails.
n.b.
this util again sort of stammers at the end of the format.
it also shows 8 million total bytes but only 2 million allocation units.
i suspect that completely destroying the current partitioning table and re-building it as a 2gb will at least make the drive usable but i can't see any way to do that.
any thoughts please?

 

Are you sure you are reading 8 million bytes?
8 million bytes = 8,000 KB (as used incorrectly where 1000 bytes = 1 KB)
8,000 KB = 8 MB (again, incorrectly based on 1000 KB = 1 MB)
so you aren't even close to 1 GB

FAT32 uses 4kb clusters for drives up to 8GB in size, so 8 million bytes would be the same as 2 million allocation units.

 

usually thing viewed by windows or nix as a flash drive wont all partions to be made, least thats what i have found from experince.

 

sorry plodr, i must have been asleep when i posted.
that hp util (above) report 8 Billion bytes total,
i.e. "8,372,203,520 bytes total disk space"
with "2,043,995 total allocation units on disk".

extra info:
ntfs format still fails.
a "quick" format takes longer than a full format - DUH?

i would still like to re-partition the drive as 2gb.
does anyone know of a way to do this please?

 

You could try looking at SwissKnife

http://www.compuapps.com/download/Swissknife/swissknife.htm

Good Luck

 

Was this one of these Hong Kong jobbies from ebay?

 

Are you sure you have a problem? An "allocation unit" isn't the same as a byte. Indeed, an allocation unit is typically at least 4K (4 thousand bytes) and sometimes much larger. So if your device actually has 2 million allocation units of 4 thousand bytes each that totals out to 2 million times 4 thousand which equals 8 billion bytes or 8 gigabytes. (I'm using the terms loosely as storage device makers often do.)

What happens when you right click on the drive letter for the pen drive and select "Properties"? How much total storage space does it show? Approx 8 GB? If so, then the device would appear to be as advertised. Have you tried to copy more than 2 GB of data to it and found that you can't do so? Or have you just misunderstood what "allocation unit" means?

I'm betting you do in fact have a functioning 8 GB storage device. Why you can't reformat it I don't know. But I think it's pretty standard for flash drives to be formatted as FAT32 and I'm not sure I've ever seen one formatted as NTFS. Given that WinXP can see and read/write fine to FAT32 devices that shouldn't be a problem either. If you mean you can't reformat it as NTFS, I'll bet you can reformat it if you select FAT32. And I'd guess that most flash drives don't have a partition table, or at least not a full featured one and, therefore, can't be partitioned like a conventional hard disk with a much larger storage capacity and a full-featured partition table. But now I'm starting to speculate so I'll leave the partitioning question for someone else to answer who knows more about that.

At any rate, 2 million allocation units of 4000 bytes each does equal 8 billion bytes or, roughly speaking, 8 GB.

What name, if any, is on this device and where did you buy it? Can you contact the seller or manufacturer for answers to any questions or problems you're having?

 

Ah, but what the heck is an allocation unit then? I guess, because of the limitations of various file systems, storage space on a variety of random access devices, such as hard drives, flash drives and other kinds of storage devices, is typically allocated in chunks of a certain size. And such chunks are called allocation units.

A file system, like so many other things in an OS, is the end result of a number of design compromises since storage space is finite and speed of access and keeping the drive overhead for the file system from becoming too large (the master file table and related data) are generally important design considerations when devising a computer OS file system.

At any rate, the practical result is, for example....

Assuming a 4K allocation unit (which is usually the smallest size available, on Windows systems at least), when you save a file which is only, say, 400 bytes in size the file system has to allocate at least one allocation unit for the storage of that file. So 4000 bytes get used up to save only 400 bytes (which is to say that 90% of that space is wasted). Or if you save a file which is 5000 bytes in size, since it's too large for one allocation unit, the OS makes 2 allocation units available for that file and 3000 of the 8000 (2 x 4k) bytes in those 2 allocation units go to waste.

If you do a search on, I'd guess, file systems or maybe allocation units you should be able to find more detailed discussion on why these sorts of compromises are made when designing file systems for computers.

 

Ah, Halo was dealing with the NTFS formatting possibility as I was writing my responses. Halo, what about partitioning such a device? Am I correct in guessing that such devices don't typically have a partition table?

 

as i said in my original post, i have spent many happy hours copying files to and from this drive before i made my original post. it was becuase of the results of those copies that i made my post.
i can "mostly" copy 8gb to the drive but occasionally it does say full after about 4gb and it does look fine. until i try to copy from the pen, then, only some of the files can be copied. all the rest are corrupted, files, directory structure, everything.
when i only copy 2gb to the pen drive then i can copy everything from the drive with no errors.
i have tried copying varying amounts to and from the drive, anything more than 2gb gives errors.
the only reason i mentioned ntfs was because i thought it might be important that windows did not offer that option on the format command then, when i ran the hp utility it offered the choice but failed. tbh, i think the fact that there is a long pause at the end of any format is highly significant. my guess is that is steams though formatting the first 2gb then takes it's time with the 6gb that isn't there.
and yes, it was a hong kong special off ebay.
now i'm off the switzerland to buy that knife to stab the damn thing.

 

I did see someone in HK starting these at £0.99, recently. The average bid price seemed to reach £16.50. The rest of Ebay suppliers seem around £39.00.
Perhaps there is something in that?

 

FAT32 has a 4gig limit so don't try copying anything over 4 gigs. If you have a large file, split it up before you copy or move it to the FAT32 formatted thumb drive.

 

thanks but i meant, a number of files totalling ... etc.
not one huge file.

 

It sounds like what you have is a defective 8 GB pen drive since you can, apparently, write to all 8 GB but can only reliably read from 2 GB. Maybe that's what you meant in your first post above by "it's actually a 2gb drive that has been made to look like an 8gb"? But if it actually only had 2 GB of flash RAM you surely wouldn't be able to write 8 GB to it, even unreliably. I guess you have no recourse via eBay or PayPal (if you used PayPal for this purchase)? Even so, you might want to email eBay and let them know about your problems with this purchase (assuming you've already tried to contact the seller for a refund and been ignored or refused). And, of course, you can leave negative feedback for the seller, but that won't help you now.

Did you try Halo's suggestion above to see if you can, indeed, format it as NTFS? If so, you may be able to create a 2 GB partition and leave the defective 6 GB remaining as unallocated.
But given that so much of the drive is apparently defective I think you shouldn't rely on even that 2 GB's of storage that seems to work fine now. I'd be suspicious that it may not be reliable for very long.

 

I couldn't see anywhere that the original poster bought this on eBay.
Also he never mentioned the brand and model. My thoughts are what if this drive had U3 software or Ready Boost on it. I don't own a drive with either doftware on but I suspect if you are not going to use this software, you need to remove it before you try and format the drive. Could that be the problem?
There are sites that step you through removing U3. I'm not sure about Ready Boost because I haven't looked into that.

 

In his post of 1/6/08 @ 11:55 he wrote (almost at the very end of that post):

"it was a hong kong special off ebay."

 

Ready boost isn't install on the drive, its software built into vista, a drive may be compatible, but still contains no special software, more of a hardware compatible to be used with readyboost. As far as the u3 software, you dont need to remove it before formating a u3 jump.

 

i have formatted it - lots of times!
with xp pro, HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool and with CompuApps SwissKnife V3. however, it makes no difference. if i copy more files than a total of just under 2gb to the pen drive then all the data is fine. as soon as i copy over the 2gb mark then the files become corrupted. they copy fine. no errors. but when i try to copy them from the pen drive they simply don't exist, all the sub-directories and filenames become corrupted. the first 2gb of files remain fine, only the one's after that 2gb are corrupted.
i still think it simply needs a completely new partition table - a "real" 2gb one!
not this hacked 8gb thing it currently has.

 

Thanks for bringing your experience to everyones's attention.
I recommend you now send the thing back for a refund.