How do I format a U3 USB key?
 

I bought a U3 USB keydrive. It has a bunch of Windows software and a boot CD type of disk that takes up 63MB. I would like to wipe all the MS stuff and recover the CD type space.

Unfortunately, Disktools won't let me erase or format that part of the USB drive. How do I do this?

Eventually, I would like to put Qemu+Damn Small Linux on the usb key.
This assumes that I can't put Darwin or OSX onto the keydrive with Qemu.

Thanks for any help.

You can't fully erase that device until you modify the partition info.
If you will be only using this flash drive on a Mac - open Disk Utility, click on the flash device (not the partition, but the manufacturers info line), and click on the partition tab. Click on the dropdown under Volume Scheme, and choose 1 partition, then click the partition button. Mac OS Extended should be the default, and that will be OK.
If you will be installing some other operating system, such as a Linux distro, then you'll need some support for that, with the correct type of partition.
Mac OS Extended will be good if you will only use on the Mac.
You won't likely get OS X to install on a USB flash drive.

Thanks for the help.

I tried to partition the main flash device, but it only partitioned the main memory. It didn't erase the CD icon 60MB partition.

The CD image part shows a locked icon in the partitioning part of disktools.

When I try to erase the files (used Finder and sudo rm -r) I get the message that the filesystem is read only.

Are there other things that I can try?

Did you try Disk Utility?

disktool may give you more options, but the GUI with Disk Utility may give you a better clue about why the partition can't be removed.
That extra partition might not be removable, part of the physical chip, but disk Utility should show that as a partition, and the partition tab in Disk Utility should let you re-partition the device.

What do you see in Disk Utility?

Disk Utilities shows the USB device, a hard drive icon and a CD image that is locked. I tried to unlock the CD image and format it but it doesn't work.

Hmm. Perhaps you are right in that the "U3/CD boot" partition is not removable. It would suck if you can't use the 60MB space and if the Windows software and autorun software stays there.

Oh, I just noticed that Disk Utilities says this partition is "Read Only".

Do you have a suggestions as to how I can make it "read write"?

Sounds like that partition must be NTFS
anyway, you can refer back to my earlier post. You need to change the partition setup

if you have a windows box you could borrow, here you go:
Uninstall U3

I have a SanDisk Micro Cruzer with a U3 disk that I want to get rid of and, after several rounds with SanDisk, their tech support told me it could only be removed on a Windows PC and that the drive isn't supported on a Mac (of course, that's not what their advertising and documentation says). I have the feeling there is a way to remove it with Terminal and root user, but I don't know enough about Unix to know how to do it and I haven't been able to find the answer on other forums. Does anyone here have the answer? I can take it back to the shop where I purchased it and they'll remove the U3 drive on their Windows PC but I'd like to be able to show SanDisk that they were wrong.

Claire

When you click on the Cruzer in Disk Utility, are you clicking on the top, unindented line with manufacturer info? Click on the unindented line, not any indented line, then go to the Erase tab and erase the entire thing.

Trevor

Two separate disks mount - one for the regular SanDisk disk and one for the U3 disk. The two disks are not connected in Disk Utility - they show up as two entirely separate disks as if I had mounted two totally different disks. I can format the regular disk but the U3 disk is a read-only disk. It's formatted in a way that Disk Utility cannot access it. I'm sure there is a way in Terminal/Unix to access it, but SanDisk says it's a no-go. According to them, it can only be removed on a PC/Windows machine.

Claire

"The U3 Launchpad is only supported on Windows XP and Windows 2000 operating systems and this restriction extends to U3 Launchpad uninstallers. A U3 Launchpad uninstaller is a software module that removes the U3 Launchpad and re-configures the drive to be a single mass storage USB drive. U3 Launchpad uninstallers are only available for and must be run on Windows XP or Windows 2000 machines."

U3 can pound sand in my opinion.

I couldn't find anyway to get rid of the U3 partition on my U3 stick without using the uninstaller on Windows. It mounts as a seperate disk(CD-R, r/o), totally unconnected to the pen drive according to disk util / `mount`.

Only advice I can give is to find a windows pc :(

You don't actually need to download the uninstaller - there is an uninstall option within the software on the drive already.

Disk Utility won't work: you have to use this Windows utility
 

To all posters who are telling people to use Disk Utility: that won't work.

The Sandisk Cruzer is not formatted as a standard USB memory stick. It contains a separate "protected area" (not partition) that shows up as a completely separate device (not under the Cruzer device) and which contains a read-only CD-ROM file system. This "thing" is called U3 and it contains some kind of Windows program. It cannot be removed or reformatted using Disk Utility.

The only way to remove the U3 area and use the full capacity of the device is to use the Windows-only software at http://www.u3.com/uninstall/default.aspx. I believe it re-writes the firmware of the Cruzer device; merely fiddling with partitions won't work.

Even though this thread is old, I'm posting this because this is the first page that comes up when you Google for "cruzer erase u3 partition". Hope it helps someone!

There really is no need for a U3 flash drive. You can use portable versions of the programs, like Portable OpenOffice, Nvu, Firefox, Gaim, etc.

Or put Linux (portable versions available) on a regular flash drive and any PC's that can boot off a USB device can boot Linux on the Flash drive.

I hate windows as much as the next guy, but the above is the only way to remove that stuff off of your drive.

- MT

The easy way?
 

Bought an 8GB Cruzer and got sick of the U3 popup in short order. Downloaded the removal program from SanDisk on a PC with WindowsXP. Everything looked OK but the software kept telling me it could only remove U3 from one USB device at a time, remove the other one and try again. There's not another USB device plugged into the computer.

I had tried Disk Utility before with no luck, went back to it and first did a find info on the unfoldered .exe file, which was locked. Unlocked it and Disk Utility rapidly erased and reformatted the drive for my Mac to Mac use. There's only 7.5GB of space available so maybe there is a hidden partition in there somewhere, but at least it gives me an empty dance floor to work on now and that's worth the loss of a little storage.

Embarrassing to trip up on my first post, but all I did was get rid of the visible files. The U3 CD image reappeared after the Cruzer had been plugged in for a while. Went to a PC and made all files visible and trashed them, still the CD reappeared. I will overcome soon as I can get SanDisk's removal software to work.

Well I bought myself a 4GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro unaware of this issue ... and I was quite puzzled when two drives appeared on my desktop when I plugged it in! I was about to delete the windows contents and reformat it as MacOS Extended but thought ... hmmm let's see if the MacOSHints forum can be of help .... and here we are! :D

I've downloaded the uninstaller and will try it tomorrow on an XP PC. I assume that will leave me with a blank memory stick formatted as FAT32 (as it is at the moment)? My only worry is when I reformat it to MacOS Extended on my Mac .... should that work with no problems? The last time I fiddled with reformatting on my last memory stick it somehow corrupted the stick and locked itself into Read Only mode ... see here ...

Thanks for any input :)

Cheers,


David :)

Hi David,

Yes, after you remove the U3 partition with the Windows application made for that purpose, you will be able to reformat the USB flash drive to any filesystem you prefer, including HFS+, and that will work with no problems.

Trevor

Thanks trevor :) I'll let you know how things go :)

Cheers,


David

The software on the stick was successfully uninstalled via the XP PC, and the stick has been reformatted to MacOS Extended.

SUCCESS! :D

The only puzzling thing is that there's only 3.69GB of space on a 4GB stick ... seems quite a lot of stuff to be used up? Can I somehow erase it *further*?

Many thanks,


David :)

4,000,000,000/1024/1024/1024=3.7252903GB

Overhead (Directories/Partitioning) is using about 30MB. You might be able to squeeze a bit more out of it if you partition using Apple Partition Map rather than GUID.

Hard/flash drive companies use some dumb numbering system to count the amount of space on the drive, most likely just to make the drive seem larger than it actually is. Somewhat like how people sell things for $9.95 instead of $10, except this is in reverse.

The drive companies use multiples of 10 (10,20,30,...1000)to calculate disk space, while the computer uses multiples of 8 (8,16,32,64,...1024). There's obviously a difference in counting disk space this way.

Back in the days of small 100MB hard drives, this didn't really matter much, as the calculations were only off by about 4 MB of space.

Today, this difference is much greater, because the capacity of the drives are much larger. A 200GB HD is actually only about 187 GB!

To the company, a 200GB HD is 200000000000 bytes (200*1000*1000*1000). 200GB to a computer is 214748364800 bytes (200*1024*1024*1024). So there's a difference of ...214748364800-200000000000=14748364800 bytes= ~13.37 GB.

Ah right, thanks. I knew there was a difference due to the different methods of counting but didn't realise it would be so much.

Thanks again for the explanations :)


David

Actually, computers calculate based on Base2 (1, 2 ,4 ,8 ,16 ,32 ,64 , etc.) or Binary where drive manufacturers use Base10 (1, 10, 100, etc.) or Decimal. Same results though.

The difference with a 200GB drive would be calculated in reverse.

Decimal = 200,000,000,000 / 1000 / 1000 / 1000 = 200 GB
Binary = 200,000,000,000 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 = 186.264515 GB

A apparent difference of 13.735485 GB.

After U3 uninstall, my Sandisk 8 GB turned into a 4 GB
 

Hello all,

Has anyone (besides me) had an 8 GB device turn into a 4 GB device, by simply uninstalling U3? I'd sure like to get it back to its intended capacity. I have a Sandisk Cruzer 8 GB.

Any assistance would be much appreciated!

- Dan -

Hi there :)

The stick has been performing well on my Mac, but I now find that it's incompatible for use on Windows computers. I formatted it as 'MacOS Extended'. What format do I need to select if I want it compatible across all platforms? Journaled? MS-DOS?

Many thanks for your help :)


David

I believe FAT32 is the format for windows. There are some limitations to it, but it will be cross platform. One limitation of which I'm aware is its inability to copy files larger than 4GB in one go. I have an external hard drive which I formatted as FAT32 to be cross platform with our windows boxes, and couldn't copy dmg files which were slightly greater than 4GB in size. The drive would allow me to create dmg's on it of that size, as the files were created incrementally. I just couldn't drag/copy the big ones.

John is correct. If you need to use this flash drive regularly with many Windows systems, then format it as FAT32 or FAT16. Note that Disk Utility calls FAT filesystems "MS-DOS Format", and will choose FAT16 or FAT32 as most appropriate for the size of your USB flash drive.

FAT32 is an old and decrepit file system with some serious limitations. It is also rather delicate. Only format the drive FAT if you need to use this with a lot of Windows computers. If you only need to use it with a single known Windows computer, there are better options such as using MacDrive on the Windows computer to allow it to read HFS+.

Trevor

Many thanks for your help guys, I will try the MS-DOS format and let you know how I get on.


David :)

Two years on, this thread is still the first hit that shows up in google.

Fortunately things have slightly improved in that you can use some sandisk software natively on osx to get rid of the read only partition.

See forum article
http://communities.sandisk.com/sandi...thread.id=1066

which refers to software available at
http://mp3support.sandisk.com/downlo...-utilities.zip

The software seems to be of a beta quality - I noticed some general instability problems with my laptop after installing the software and then running the partition remover, but perhaps that's just coincidence. I checked that the supplied sandisk utility uninstaller removed everything (including kexts) based upon a snap shot taken before the install, and indeed it does. I used the software to get rid of the U3 device and then "uninstalled the uninstaller" and my laptop hasn't missed a beat since I removed the software.

Anyway, the removal of the ghost device on U3 usb keys worked well, freeing up about 150MB on a 4G key. The sandisk software took a copy of the key (keep in mind you'll need enough free space on your root disk for this) and then wrote it back after updating the firmware.

As the capacity of the device increased, the secondary GUID table on the usb key was no longer in the correct location which needs to be corrected. Most things work with just the primary label being correct, but if you want to modify the layout, you'll need to rectify the inconsistency. To do that use disk utility to unmount the filesystems on the key (don't use eject). Use command (apple) 'I' to find out the disk number of the flash key while you are using disk utility.

Then from a terminal run
gpt recover /dev/diskN
where N is the disk number obtained from disk utility info.

Hope this makes sense to anyone still running into the problem.

Cheers.

There is now a Mac Removal Tool

Thread:
http://communities.sandisk.com/sandi...thread.id=1066

Direct Link to Mac Removal Tool:
http://mp3support.sandisk.com/downlo...tility-mac.dmg

Thanks for this information. I was pulling my hair out in frustration over this.

It's baffling that SanDisk has continued shipping U3 after all these years and all these complaints.

Success with the Mac-specific U3 uninstaller!
 

Hi there - i know this is an old post, but i'm registering specifically to post my experience
& give Thanks for finding a solution to this challenge -

please allow me to be heard also, as it will likely help someone else like me in the future -

i googled "remove the u3 cd" and wound up here,
finally getting to post #33 by JAA, who interestingly only has that 1 post,
but it turned out to be the post that helped me, so THANKS JAA wherever/whoever you are!

i was unsuccessful at uninstalling or rewriting the cd-rom component of 3 SanDisk 4GB cruzers
on any of my WinTel boxes,

since sometime in the past i had click-deleted some files on the usb stick -
such that a U3 icon no longer showed up in the system tray
to allow the simple built-in click-uninstaller to work,
nor did it allow the downloaded official removal tool to work,
nor was i successful using Gparted live CD, as Gparted did NOT recognize the CD-rom.

then i dL the Mac uninstaller utility JAA linked in their post,
followed the directions installing & running it on one of my Macs,
& VOILA! worked a charm for all 3 sticks.

then, wonder of wonders, using its built-in uninstaller, cleanly removed it from the iMac :D

Best of luck to all ~

By the way, the Mac removal utility doesn't work under OS 10.6. Needs to be 10.5 or lower.

Neodymium Protocol
 

I too, could not format a sandisk thumb. i read this thread and nearly gave up, until i grabbed the neodymium magnet from my child's lenz law experiment and waived it around the drive.

worked like a charm.

Sorry about your luck. A strong magnetic field can't possibly resuscitate a USB flash drive - which doesn't use any type of magnetic technology.

By the way there is a better Universal Format called EXFAT. This will allow for files sizes greater then 4GB cross platform. Works out of the box with OSX, Vista, Win7. XP/Server 2003 requires a patch http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955704 then it works great there too.

I use this to move Virtual box Vms between windows and mac. Same one works on both. Thing is its currently around 12GB so Exfat was the way to go. I dinked around with ntfs but since its not supported natively on the mac and I wanted to find a clean free solution I found exfat.

EXFAT. Good to know. Thanks anthlover.

I neglected to mention the format choice is in Disk tools with all the other choices:) Easy as pie.