Before Posting Sandisk Cruzer Micro/Mini Problems

[SNGX1275]

It appears people continue to have problems with these drives. Sometimes the drive just goes dead, but many times they can be fixed.

Here is one way that I know fixed mine, and its fixed several others throughout this forum, but the continued posting the same problem and the lack of people posting this as a solution has made it apparent we need a sticky on it.

1. Find a computer with Windows98 (I think First Edition will work, but I used SE) and then download and install the driver for it (Windows98 requires a driver to read the drive).
2. Plug in the your Sandisk Cruzer.
2b. The drive should appear, try and open it and get all your data off, if the drive doesn't appear there may still be hope (details later).
3. Format the drive as FAT32.
4. Recopy your data back, and plug it into an XP machine, its fixed.

Now if 98 didn't see the drive, there is an HP utility for formatting USB flash drives, do a search on these forums for HP and Sandisk and Format and it will probably come up. Try that, if that doesn't work, I'd say there is a 90% chance your drive is hosed.

 

[Tedster]

an alternate solution for XP users is to go into

Control panel , admin tools, computer management, disk management

and right click on the letter of the flash drive that is not working

format it. (this will low level format the drive.) XP views the drive as a hard disk.

exit
then go to my computer
tools
right click on your flash drive, format, and high level format. Now your directory information will be loaded.
You may be able to use some recovery software to retrieve files if you haven't written anything else to the flash drive, but data recovery is not guaranteed.

 

[DragonMaster]

Mine works and I never formatted it. Maybe there was a problem with formatting @ the factory?

The only time I had problems was with a self-powered hub

Mine runs with a FAT16 partition. It's a 256MB.

 

[COMPUTER DOCTOR]

Fixing The Mini Cruzer Format Problem

I Used The Computer Manager - Storage- Disk Management Utility In Xp. I High Lighted The Removable Drive And Reallocated The Space And Formated The Drive And Is Now Works Fine. Fixdisk Did Not Work Becasue The Drive Was Set During Manufacturing. The Partition Allocation Was Lost And Has To Be Reallocated. I Did Not Try Partion Magic, But That Was My Next Step. Xp Did Fix The Problem.
As Marther Said "it A Good Thing" Hope This Helps .

 

[Tedster]

It's always good for people to come up with as many solutions as possible. Thanks for your input.

 

[dark_destiny]

Hi

my usb doesn't appear in disk management

how can i format it??? is there other way to solve this
N: is my broken usb and I have no driver to this usb stick please help

 

[SNGX1275]

I can only suggest that you try a different USB port on your computer, do other USB devices work?

Do you have access to another computer preferably not running XP? If so you can try the 98 trick described above.

 

[dark_destiny]

I try other port and it didn't work also I might try win 98 but I don't have driver lor

 

[SNGX1275]

You can download the driver from sandisk's website. Just place it on a floppy, or transfer over the network (if applicable), or burn it to a cd .

Sandisk's site last time I was there, kind of sucked, so here is another site that has the 98se driver.

 

[dark_destiny]

thank for posting site but i'm using sony microvault and have the same problem with you guy so I want to know there is a driver for sony or not???

 

[Ryosuke_Gunma]

thank for posting site but i'm using sony microvault and have the same problem with you guy so I want to know there is a driver for sony or not???

I have the same problem as you. I have the Sony Microvault and it's not detecting.

 

[sith-phelan]

I must confess it is very frustrating...I have the same problem with a sandisk 1gb micro...worked well for about half a day...next day nothing...recognised by explorer...my computer etc...if accessed takes about 1 year with right mouse click and shows semaphore error with everything else...disk management can;t format it... hp program says write protection...kildisk fails...am using winxp pro...tried on 3 computers and same problems... usb port works and the light is on when the disk is inserted...even flashing as if something is accessing it...

Is there any help out there...I have no access to win98 as all friends upgraded a while back...

thanks in advance

p.s. I believe a permanent marker on all usb DO NOT FORMAT...This device may increase your levels of frustration to the extreme seek medical advice if concerned...

puke:

 

[SNGX1275]

If you have broadband, you could download a live linux distro and take a shot at formatting it that way. For some reason XP (and maybe 2k) have problems with formatting these drives, 98 has a much higher success rate of recovering the drive by formatting. I have never attempted it in Linux, but I imagine whatever plagues the XP systems doesn't exist in linux. Just remember to keep it FAT32.

And I think you are right, just never format them in the first place. Its a flash drive, and as far as I understand it doesn't matter where the information is on the drive, it can be accessed at the same speed as anywhere else, so fragementation should not matter at all. So by that logic, you probably shouldn't ever format them, just delete the files.

 

[sith-phelan]

Thanks for the reply...thinking it over yes it makes sense not to format it...as has no tracks/etc... thus deleting the file is enough...

am downloading the linux live disk as per suggestion as it is the only thing I have not tried. Thanks again...and if anyone else has other solutions I am all ears... :angel:

 

[rekatt]

I have a very simmilar problem with my flash drive.
Namely a couple of days ago installed xp pro sp2 on my laptop, and before had xp home edition.

Now my flash drive (a-data 2gb) is not recognized from the laptop, while is still recognized from my destkop (win98) and all the other xp pro systems i've tried it so far.

Installed the drivers (win98) that came with the flash disk on the laptop, and it still wont recongnize the drive.

When i plug it in you cant see it on MyComputer and the only place you can see that a flash disk is present is the green arrow on the icon tray bar on the low rigt side of the screen.

Any ideas,

thanks

 

[SNGX1275]

I'd say take the data off of it, and format as fat32 in 98. Then try.

Pretty much all the suggestions we can offer were at the top of this thread. For the complete list of what we can suggest can be found in this thread: https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic45834.html

 

[x68507]

Alternative Fix

Although this post might be dead, I ran across it as one of the top google searches for "format unrecognizable usb drive," so I have a feeling people might still come here. I tried what everyone mentioned for a Kingmax drive, but it didn't work. However, after following similar steps, I got my device to work.

Right click My Computer->Manage->Disk Management. Scroll down to your unrecognized drive (that is not listed in the Volume type) and right click->Properties. At the bottom of the General Tab, change Device Usage to "Do not use this device (disable)" and select OK. Remove your drive and then plug it back in. Windows XP will then search for and reinstall the drivers. All my data was still on the drive. Hope this helps.

 

[samthecham]

I found one answer on an old posting and it pointed me in the direction of a little formatting utility that saved my cruzer. I had it coming up in My Computer but without being able to access it in any way (the right-click didn't work & I'm on a PC running windows 2000 (at work). I think I managed to wipe out the partition on it but I can;t be sure. Anway, I googled this: HPUSBF_GUIversion.zip and ran ythe program and hey presto I have found almost all of my lost flash drive.

I have lost about 30Mb somewhere (to a hidden file) and all the data has gone, but seeing as I had already deleted most of the data I wasn't going to lose any sleep over that, and I'd lost that much space to the silly on board software.

Not ideal, perhaps, but it saves me having to buy a new drive, and in the current financial climate, every penny/cent counts.

 

[photocat73]

an alternate solution for XP users is to go into

Control panel , admin tools, computer management, disk management

and right click on the letter of the flash drive that is not working

format it. (this will low level format the drive.) XP views the drive as a hard disk.

exit
then go to my computer
tools
right click on your flash drive, format, and high level format. Now your directory information will be loaded.
You may be able to use some recovery software to retrieve files if you haven't written anything else to the flash drive, but data recovery is not guaranteed.

What if the format option is grayed out in Disk Management for XP?