How to reformat usb flash drive?

You can try this

Drop to a CMD (DOS box/command line) and

attrib -R drive:\Path\*.*

if that partition isn't locked, It may work..

You can do a attrib drive:\path\ just to see what files are there that maybe hidden, also.

Who knows.

Jamie

Google "U3 removal".

-- Les Cargill

Yes, I think I spoke too soon. After playing around with the thing, I discovered a way to reset the password which also deletes all the data files. Apparently this thing is designed so if lost the data is unreadable without a password, but you can always start over with a new password. Interesting idea. So, it works fairly well now with almost a gig of free space. I managed to drag a few files from the C drive to the usb drive and read them back from the usb. The only problem is the driver software has to be installed on any PC where the thing is used.

Thanks,

-Bill

Trying to "save" or "use" or "revive" a 1GB flash is ludicrous.

You can buy 8GB for less than $10 with no partition games.

You might have to be logged in as "administrator" or "root," depending on your OS.

Good Luck! Rich

On a sunny day (Sun, 1 May 2011 17:47:12 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Bill Bowden wrote in :

In Linux (use a live CD if you have no Linux) dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/whatever bs=1024 count=1000000 Something like that will just clear every byte on that device. Then use fdisk /dev/whatever to make new partitions, after that you can format it with whatever filesystem you want.

But maybe it has some write protect switch? For example on SDcards not all readers respect that switch. Need more info.

U3 is Sandisk's scheme for password-protecting a Windows volume; it has a bit of the USB drive partitioned off for an autoload software wedge, and truly reformatting the memory stick requires the Sandisk administrator software (Windows only, which is a nuisance for Mac or Linux users). The device won't honor generic USB mass-storage controls for that protected volume with U3 on it.

On a sunny day (Mon, 2 May 2011 10:34:12 -0700 (PDT)) it happened whit3rd wrote in :

OIC, well no Sandisk then for me :-) I do have some Sandisk xGB micro SD IIRC.

For the Sandisk Cruzer? No, I've got those and they work on all PCs. Sans prior SW installation. Ok, they don't work on really old ones from the pre-XP days. I think that it is one of the touted features of U3 not to need any software except what's on the USB drive itself.

Since I also dislike those "free" softwares that come with such merchandise I was just about to hose it off with a cleanser program that I think Sandisk provides. Then it dawned on me that this password feature is actually very practical. You can carry files around in your pocket. Even if someone beats you over the head and takes everything, I don't think that anyone other than maybe the secret service would be able to get at the data without knowing the password. AFAIR these drives (or at least some of them) even go into lockdown mode if repeated attempts to feed random passwords are discovered.

Removing the offending U3 crap is simple. See Mike's link earlier.

I must have done something wrong. The first machine I tried required resetting the password which erased all the data. Then I copied a few files to make sure it was working, but when I connected the updated usb drive to a second machine, it simply installed the drivers and gave me access to the data disk without entering a password.

-Bill

If you want it to be password-protected I believe you have to re-enable the password feature first, then copy files onto it. Then a U3 screen should come up on the other computer prompting you to enter the password. On really old computers a USB drive configured that way won't work.

What does 'simple' mean? The uninstaller has to be downloaded, and run on a Windows machine, before you can reclaim the storage in that little add-on partition (and obliterate the useless icon).

My computers are Mac/Linux/Windows in the ratio 13:5:3. Getting the U3 removed was a nuisance (and if that '3' were a zero, it'd be worse than a nuisance).

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Yes, I think that's right. I discovered if I click on the little U3 icon it brings up a menu to enable/disable security, add programs, explore the disk, etc. I enabled security and it now asks for a password.

-Bill