USB 32G PEN DRIVE - Only allowing 8gb

bloodline76 · 3 Oct 2008 at 17:42

I have just got a 32gb pen drive but it is not allowing the full 32gb?

I suspect that they partition them into groups of 8gb. How do I access the other parts?

Format it?

Its showing as FAT32, all my other drives are NTFS?

Thanks!

Major_Disaster · 3 Oct 2008 at 17:44

What do you mean exactly? What do you see in My Computer when you insert the drive? Right click > Format?

bloodline76 · 3 Oct 2008 at 18:26

The drive is there and it shows the full 32gb of space but I can not put anything further onto it. It says that its full up!

RaiderX · 3 Oct 2008 at 18:28

how big is the file you are trying to put on it? as it is fat32, it wont allow files bigger than 4GB to be saved onto it.

bloodline76 · 3 Oct 2008 at 18:37

RaiderX said:
how big is the file you are trying to put on it? as it is fat32, it wont allow files bigger than 4GB to be saved onto it.

Oh never knew that. It was bigger than 4gb. Does that mean I have to format it as NTFS?

milkinc13 · 3 Oct 2008 at 19:28

yup FAT 32 only allows file size max of 4GB, as it uses 32bit addressing, same as using 4GB of RAM on 32bit OS i beleve

titaniumx3 · 4 Oct 2008 at 14:15

You will need to format as NTFS.

Major_Disaster · 4 Oct 2008 at 14:31

Yep. Format as NTFS and try again.

bloodline76 · 4 Oct 2008 at 17:03

Major_Disaster said:
Yep. Format as NTFS and try again.

This wont let me format as NTFS???

Only FAT32.

Any other suggestions?

Mike1983 · 4 Oct 2008 at 17:11

Are you sure?
I had no problem formatting a mem stick as NTFS. Are you right clicking on the drive, clicking format and then trying to select NTFS from the drop-down menu?

Are you getting an error message or is the NTFS option not there?

IceWind · 4 Oct 2008 at 17:13

most pen drives are fat32 and THATS IT nothing more, you cant formatt them to a different structure.

bloodline76 · 4 Oct 2008 at 17:49

Mike1983 said:
Are you sure?
I had no problem formatting a mem stick as NTFS. Are you right clicking on the drive, clicking format and then trying to select NTFS from the drop-down menu?

Are you getting an error message or is the NTFS option not there?

Dont get the option. Doing as you say. Its a shame as I bought the 32gb pen drive to transfer large files and now cant do it.

smogsy · 4 Oct 2008 at 17:55

seems dumb who makes it?

Poolybit · 4 Oct 2008 at 18:00

You could try doing it by command line?

Load up a command line and type the following:

convert DRIVELETTER /fs:ntfs

Replace DRIVELETTER with the letter of your USB device and see if that is a go..?

P.S... Make sure you have a backup in case your device wipes it / doesn't support NTFS

bloodline76 · 4 Oct 2008 at 18:08

THought I Cracked it!

Got to device settings and change the policy to optimised for performance.

Then format and you have the option of NTFS

But this fails format when I try. Any other ideas?

What about a driver update?

Mike1983 · 4 Oct 2008 at 20:16

What is the make / model of the disk?

bloodline76 · 4 Oct 2008 at 21:45

It doesnt have any make/model, bought it cheaply off the bay. Checked the properties but doesnt give any specifics.

Strife212 · 4 Oct 2008 at 22:01

It might be a fake then, they often are!

Berserker · 4 Oct 2008 at 23:34

Yup - I thought about asking if it had come from eBay but thought the FAT32 answer was more likely at the time.

Common scam that - overformatting the stick so it reports capacity it doesn't actually have and then selling it, making it look like a bargain.

Not sure what tool you can use to find out/format the actual capacity.

bloodline76 · 4 Oct 2008 at 23:34

Strife212 said:
It might be a fake then, they often are!

Well it does work. Its just I cant move it to ntfs instead of fat32. Its not a huge problem but I have files that are over 4gb and often switch them over to other computers, which is why i got it.