Firebird 16gb flash drive now shows only 64mb.

So I’ve got this 16gb Cruzer Switch drive that I used to back up all my pictures from my computer before doing a format and restore It worked before I did the restore on the computer but after I reloaded the computer and tried to put the pictures back on the computer the flash drive would keep giving the windows error - “You need to format drive in disk f before you can use it.” I’ve tried all the data tools out there and all of them only see 64mb - RAW system and can’t read anything file wise on the drive. I’ld rather not reformat the drive as I would really like to get those pictures back. Most forums direct me to Textdisk as an option to fix the drive but when I run the analyse it doesn’t see any partions and gives a - doesn’t have endmark 0xAA55 - error. The step by step guides say the next step is to try changing the sector size and then run the analyse again, but I’m not sure what to set the Cylinders Headers and Sectors to. Most of the examples out there are for HDD’s or flash drive of different sizes. Anyone have any ideas as to what the CHS values should be, or another method of fixing this drive from everything I’ve read it should be possible to fix this drive.

Try running CHKDSK on the drive.  If that doesn’t help I don’t know what to tell you.

Good luck.

Hello,

in that case where the usb drive is detected with 64MB and in RAW format there is nothing you can do and the drive is defective. You can replace it with the place of purchase or contact sandisk direct to ask for a replacement.

Try to format this with NTFS. I think that would just fix the issue for you. Or might as well to isolate the issue, try another PC if it behaves the same.

Try this, my last ditch attempt - You will be formatting the drive though. My personal solution and steps to try is :

  1. Press start, type “CMD”, and open CMD with administrative privelledge

  2. When the command prompt opens, type “Diskpart”, then press enter

  3. A list of drives detected by your computer appears. Type “Select Disk x”, where x refers to the USB Drive (should be 14g size). Press enter. 
    WARNING: SELECTING THE WRONG DRIVE WILL CAUSE LOST OF DATA IN THE WRONG DRIVE. PROCEED WITH CAUTION

  4. command prompt will inform that the disk x is selected. Type “clean” and press enter. Drive will be ERASED.

  5. Once complete sucessfully, CLOSE the command prompt window. 

If this works, your chances of getting the drive back is slightly higher than 0 (maybe 5%? I dunno, haha)

  1. Press Win+R on your keyboard, and type " diskmgmt.msc", press enter.

**7) **You will see a 16GB unallocated space for the thumbdrive disk, if the previous steps were succesful

  1. Right click on the unallocated space, select NEW SIMPLE VOLUME

  2. Enter the MAXIMUM size of allocated space allowed, then NEXT. Assign a drive letter etc, may appear. If so select a drive letter than isn’t used by another drive. Then a summary of works appears, Select next, and let disk management format the disk.

  3. If succesful, the unallocated space becomes blue, meaning allocated.

  4. Your drive shows up in windows as blank with 14-16GB. WAIT! DO NOT USE THE DRIVE YET.

If this works, your chance of getting the drive back is very good, and you have 1 shot at recovering the files! 

If there are errors reading the disk (e.g. CRC fail or cannot read etc, i’m sorry…i have no other solutions than an RMA to sandisk)

Recover files

  1. Cross fingers and say your prayers, hope your other methods you tried did not damage your files too much!

  2.  Download RECUVA zip file from this link to your desktop: https://www.piriform.com/recuva/builds

14) Extract the zip file, and run Recuva64 or Recuva.exe

  1. A recuva wizard appears. click cancel

  2. The main recuva window appears. Select the newly formatted usb drive in the drop down box, then click options.

  3. Under actions tab, check the tick boxes for “Enable Deep Scan” and “Scan for non-deleted files”. Press okay

18) Now, press scan in recuva. Let it do it’s work! May take 30 mins to 2 hours, depending on drive.

  1. All recoverable files will be listed. Select ALL by ticking the checkbox at the beggining of the list, and press the ‘recover’ button.

  2. IMPORTANT: WHen the prompt asks where to save recovered files, save them in any drive EXCEPT the usb drive! Otherwise you cannot recover the files! Your desktop –> Create new folder’ would be the best choice

  3. press okay, then let recuva recover all the files.

  4. Once done, you can close recuva and examine the recovered files. I hope you can recover most of your files. Good luck! 

  5. Send the drive for RMA. Maybe the drive has reached end of life and is becoming corrupted. 

I wish you best of luck in getting the files back and getting the RMA. I wasn’t so lucky when this happened to my Sandisk 32GB Ultra Micro SD Card (I lost all my files, no backup!). That incident alone made me lose confidence in sandisk micro-sd cards imo, and i had no receipt to change them, so they are stuck with me. Now using another brand for my micro-sd cards

Cheers and best of luck! 

Let me share to you what I have experienced and the solution. 

I have the same 16gb and I accidentally nuke it. When I plug it in on my other laptop it shows 64mb and I am not able to reformat. So here’s what I did.

1. Usb must be plug in.

  1. I downloaded EaseUS data recovery and run it.

  2. Select the unallocated data storage. 

  3. once done no need to hit on recover or anything.

  4. close EaseUS data recovery

  5. unplug/replug the USB

  6. goto disk management on your windows

  7. promt will show up.

  8. now you should see the 14gb unallocated data

  9. On the prompt it will ask you to format the unallocated space. no changes needed just hit on next and proceed with it.

  10. Done. USB should be fix

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@hugethetank wrote:

Let me share to you what I have experienced and the solution. 

 

I have the same 16gb and I accidentally nuke it. When I plug it in on my other laptop it shows 64mb and I am not able to reformat. So here’s what I did.

 

1. Usb must be plug in.

  1. I downloaded EaseUS data recovery and run it.
  1. Select the unallocated data storage. 
  1. once done no need to hit on recover or anything.
  1. close EaseUS data recovery
  1. unplug/replug the USB
  1. goto disk management on your windows
  1. promt will show up.
  1. now you should see the 14gb unallocated data
  1. On the prompt it will ask you to format the unallocated space. no changes needed just hit on next and proceed with it.
  1. Done. USB should be fix

 

After step 10, it might be fixed, but I expect you’ve lost all your files. At least with Testdisk (under Linux) all I had to do was run the utility once, properly eject the disk (which was still showing as a Firebird 64Mb) and plug it back in. It’s back to normal, thankfully.

 

And not everyone runs Windows, HugetheTank. I try to create helps that work in either Windows or Linux because of that fact. (MacOS is similar enough to Linux that most Linux repair methods work there, too. In all cases, working with the command-line is pretty much a given.)

I had the same issue. My 16GB Flash Drive was only showing 64MB as its size and said it was in RAW format. I was having a complete nightmare with it. I tried everything trying to fix it then I came accross this HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool 

Install the program and run it as administrator

Select your ScanDisk flash drive
choose Fat32
Tick the Quick Format box

Start formating

If the process fails close the program unplug the flash drive then plug it back in and repeat the process till it formats.

(I had to do this a couple of times). Once its formated successfuly eject the flash drive and then plug it back in again and 

you should now see the true size. My Flash drive now shows it to be 14.91GB and its working perfectly. 

itechnoteen.com !!

A rather strange site.  How does one know if the HP link above downloads the HP utility or a malware app?  I would feel safer  getting the HP utility from here:

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/19258/~/formatting-usb-drives-with-third-party-tools

or here:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HP-USB-Disk-Storage-Format-Tool.shtml

instead.

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I had the same problem. I freaked out and was about to format it.DON’T Format the drive.

Then I safely ejected the drive. The drive light was still flashing rapidly.

I just unplugged it and plugged it back in and it worked. All my data was intact.

I think this is a warning sigh to upgrade your flashdrive.

I did this from the sandisk site quoted and it worked immediately.  Thanks!

that works for me THANKS

Thanks a bunch! Your method worked for me finally. I encountered this usb problem over a year ago, and I scoured the internet and tried every method but none of them worked. So, I gave up and put my usb away. But today, I needed an extra usb to use as a Readyboost device, and I decided to try one more time and found this thread and your comment. Thank you again.
I was able to recover all my data inside the usb too. Btw, I formatted it over 20 times already. But I guess all the data are still there since they were not overwritten yet. :slight_smile:

Old thread, but nonetheless, I will try to spill some light on the Firebird 64mb
if Sandisk flash drive is recognized as Sandisk 64mb RAW then the NAND is disconnected from the controller as this video explains
sandisk anisha.PNG