• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Hidden Partition on USB Flash drive, pops up virt. CD-ROM & ads

phaxmohdem

phaxmohdem

Golden Member
I recently got a flash drive from a company at a career fair at school that when inserted into a computer pops up a virtual CD-ROM drive with their recruitment information on it.

It is a 1GB flash drive, and I wouldn't mind having it around for moving drivers and stuff around at home, but that recruitment thing is bloody annoying.

I've tried all I know at this point, including GParted in Ubuntu (which can't see the partition), Windows Disk Manager, and even the U3 removal tool.

Any tips before I throw it out/at something?
 
Symantec Partition Magic or Acronis Disk Director might be able to delete all partitions on the thumb drive. If you can run FDISK, that could also do the job.
 
I've gotten tons of these and searched high and low for a removal tool, I've been told this is part of the drives "firmware" and there is no way to remove it without the flash tool from the manuf.
 
See if diskpart may be handy.
http://technet.microsoft.com/e.../library/cc766465.aspx


Connect the flash drive.

Open a command window.
Type diskpart.

The diskpart program starts.
In the diskpart command window that opened, type list disk.
This will list all your drives including the flash drive.
Hopefully, by the size of it, you can tell which drive is the flash.

Type select disk 3 if 3 is the number of the flash drive on the list you got when you typed list disk. Use whatever number is the number of your flash drive.

Type list partition.

Do you see the partition now?
 
Most flsh drives that include some sort of software store it on a seperate chip from the flash chip used fro storage so there is no way to remove it.
 
Hmm well I've tried all your options to no avail. Diskpart doesn't even recognize the flash drive 🙁 It's only 1 gig, so no big loss. I may take it apart and play around with the PCB to see if I can figure something out in hardware.
 
Remove the harddrive from the USB enclosure with the additional cdrom hardware, go to Fry's pick up a new $15 enclosure and enjoy what you thought you bought in the first place. In addition to being un-removable the hidden CDROM and enabling hardware slow the drive down quiter a bit, so you will probably pick up data speed for your trouble!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top