For the life of me, I cannot figure out why I can only format my new Cruzer blade 4GB to 3.77GB of free space. I have an older 4GB Cruzer that is full and I need to replicate it. It is formatted in NTFS and properties shows the capacity at 4,110,196,736 bytes 3.82GB. On the new drive after removing U3 and formatting NTFS I get 4,051,677,184 bytes free. 2.77GB If i look at Computer, Manage, Disk Managment partions, one is 3.83GB NTFS and the other is 3.77GB NTFS.
Whoops… that was a typo, the 2.77 should be a 3.77.
The NEWER drive has less room. I have a second 4GB blade, and I get the same formatted size, less than my older Cruzer. If nobody has any ideas, I’ll just have to get an 8GB drive top copy the older 4GB drive. They are pretty cheap these days, there will just be a heap of wasted room on the new drive. It will still bug me tho!
BTW New drives are formatted before they leave the factory. Try copying your old drive to a new one that you don’t format. Just delete the few folders/files on it before doing the copy.
They also come from the factory with an 8MB hidden partition courtesy of U3, leaving less space. The old Cruzer never had U3. Its nessasary uninstall U3 via the uninstall utility, which deletes and merges the hidden partion.
I guess i could experiment with different cluster sizes and see what the results are.
They haven’t created U3 drives since 2009. Unfortuntely. And you’re correct formating the drive doesn’t remove the U3 partition, it needs to be uninstalled to free up the 8MB. But I don’t think the Blades ever had U3 so that shouldn’t be an issue here. Blades usually come with an autorun.inf file two .exe files and two folders all of which are readily deletable, without formating.
However, your thought about using different cluster sizes sounds promising. Please report your results.
Well its not U3 specifically, but the updated version of U3 they call SecureAccess. Same thing as far as I’m concerned. Unwanted software taking up space (along with the 8MB hidden partition)
Cluster size or partuion type didn’t seem to do anything to the formatted size. I think next step is to take something like Partition Magic and delete the partition and recreate it. (Windows 7 isn’t letting my delete the volume on this device depsite being logged in as Adminstrator)
I’ve played around with EaseUS Partition Master with no sucess. I’ve come to the conclusion that Sandisk just isn’t putting the same number of logical sectors on the Blade, as they did on the original Cruzer. Here is the reported total physical sector list as reported by Partition Master.
It would be interesting to see what another brand’s 4GB drive looks like, perhaps in the future. I need to move on with my projects so I’m just going to get a larger stick. These 4GB Cruzers are only $5 at my local Staples, so its no big loss.
Like a lot of products in the grociery store, the container volume is slowly shrinking to remain unnoticed by many. (ice cream, milk, ect)
