Kingston Datatraveler 8gb shows as 2gb

[yh125d]

I just used my kingston 8gb flash drive as a dell diagnostic boot drive thingy, and now in windows it only shows at a 1.96gb drive. I reformatted, tried with NTFS, FAT, FAT32, and it shows as 2gb under them all. Is there anything I can do to restore it to the 8gb I know it's good for?

 

[yh125d]

Oh, the only place I've found that shows it as an 8gb drive is HDtune

 

[yh125d]

Anyone?

 

[Samalama]

Well you're going to need to use some sort of partitioning program. Something like Gparted or Paragon Partition Manger might work: Gparted, Paragon. With Gparted you would have to burn it to a disc and boot from it, and Paragon can be installed to and run from Windows.

 

[coxmaster]

Try formatting it with Disk Management?

 

[techkingston08]

Hi yh125d,

If the partition programs or Disk Management was not able to fix your problem I suggest getting the drive replaced at the reseller or Kingston. Partition programs typically do not work with removable drives. Which means, when the partition is changed, as the Dell diag did to yours, there is no going back.

Kingston Tech Support

 

[evilspoons]

Try the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool". Google it, it's not too hard to find and it's free.

It has worked miracles with borked USB drives for me before.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

this flash drive tester can completely erase any existing file system/partition data in its destructive full write, then read test mode. it should zap any existing funny stuff on the drive.

 

[yh125d]

Originally posted by: VeryCharBroiled
this flash drive tester can completely erase any existing file system/partition data in its destructive full write, then read test mode. it should zap any existing funny stuff on the drive.

Thanks, I'm running that right now. I probably should have done the HP utility first though, as the ETA to finish this one is about 80 minutes, lol

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

yeah it does take a while. shoulda warned ya good test anyway to make sure the drives good.

make sure youre running the full destructive write/read test, the other tests modes dont erase or change anything.

 

[yh125d]

There were three options: read, write, and read+write together. I did the read + write, I'm assuming this is the right one?

I'm getting "! Error in data at LBN = *sector #* (Off:0h): expected 14600FC, encountered 000000h", or something like that. Sound normal?

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

yep, if its the one that warns you that all data will be destroyed. its the one that say write, read and compare.

that error is not normal. I do remember when new drives are tested the 1st few blocks sometimes come up as "recoverable error" but subsequent test come up as normal. its only done that on brand new drives on initial testing and never after the 1st run. at no time have I ever got an error like yours except on a POS ebay drive that was a fake 8 gig drive. no more ebay drives for me (never should if been a 1st really).

I would run it again and see what it says. only the one error?

EDIT: just ran it on my sandisk 1 gig, heres its log file.


00:06:39.48 - -------------------------------- New test process started --------------------------------
00:06:39.50 - Started "Writing test data" for drive F: 979MB, "SanDisk, U3 Cruzer Micro, 3.21, 000015424C610BB8", 512b
00:09:55.39 - Completed "Writing test data" for drive F: 979MB, "SanDisk, U3 Cruzer Micro, 3.21, 000015424C610BB8", 512b
00:09:55.40 - Tested total 979.840MB in 0:03:15 with 5.003MB/s
00:09:55.40 - Total write errors: Fatal=0, Recoverable=0
00:09:55.40 - Started "Reading and comparing data" for drive F: 979MB, "SanDisk, U3 Cruzer Micro, 3.21, 000015424C610BB8", 512b
00:11:08.59 - Completed "Reading and comparing data" for drive F: 979MB, "SanDisk, U3 Cruzer Micro, 3.21, 000015424C610BB8", 512b
00:11:08.59 - Tested total 979.840MB in 0:01:13 with 13.394MB/s
00:11:08.59 - Total errors: Read fatal=0, Read recoverable=0; Write fatal=0, Write recoverable=0; Comparsion=0

 

[yh125d]

I got the recoverable error bit for the first part, maybe it was getting that error on the 2gb partition thats already existing. Right now I've been getting that error on every sector since the 32256th, and it's on the 235000th. Now it says 14 hours left, I'm just going to abort and try the HP utility I think

 

[yh125d]

Here's a screenshot of it running

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

wow.

only time I got all red like was that fake ebay "8 gig" flash drive. it was a no name from china, which should of clued me in, but hey live and learn..

Ive used that program on every new flash drive I get (about a dozen so far) and have never had any reputable brand give any errors aside from the initial few "recoverable" ones. not sure why some do that but after that initial test they come up perfect on all subsequent runs.

what does it show up as in Disk Management?

 

[yh125d]

Disk management shows at a 1.97 gb FAT32 partition, and a 5.5gb unallocated space. Neither of which are editable in any way. No shrink, expand, delete, create new, nothing

 

[yh125d]

The HP utility did the trick, back up to 7.5gb. Thanks for the help!