How do I reformat Flash Disk?

[Denny Crane]

I bought another SanDisk Cruzer keychain-size flash disk at Costco on Saturday -- this time an 8GB. I have been using a 2GB to move files from my office iMac to the home one, and vice versa, and it works great.

One little annoyance, however, is that each flash drive comes with a separate partition for a U3 System, which is designed for use solely with PCs and not Macs. Two icons appear on the Desktop. When I remove the drive icon by moving it to Trash, I must move two icons, which seems unnecessary. I would like to reformat the flash drives to free up all the space. Granted, the U3 System takes only 5.5 MB, but I would like to make it disappear.

I can't seem to do this with Disk Utility, since it won't show a way to reformat both parts of the flash disk. Is there some other way? Maybe Tech Tool Pro 4? Thanks.

Norm

[Hound]

May I piggyback onto your question, Norm?  ;-)


... And if we do reformat a flash drive on a Mac, can we still use it on PC's as well?

Thanks in advance!


-Brian

[Col]

I bought another SanDisk Cruzer keychain-size flash disk at Costco on Saturday -- this time an 8GB. I have been using a 2GB to move files from my office iMac to the home one, and vice versa, and it works great.

I can't seem to do this with Disk Utility, since it won't show a way to reformat both parts of the flash disk. Is there some other way? Maybe Tech Tool Pro 4? Thanks.

I have formatted a number of USB Flash drives using Disk Utility, included SanDisk Cruzers (they are cheap but slow in my experience) so your comment that this was not possible surprised me. Is there some kind of electronic or other lock on it that might be stopping it from being reformatted? Some "security" feature?

I don't know if TechTool Pro can erase and format.

FWIW the procedure is to insert the USB drive, open Disk Utility, select the USB drive in the left sidebar, click on the Erase tab, select MS-DOS file system under Volume Format for Mac and Windows use or Mac OS Extended for Mac-only use.

To answer another question, yes, you can format it on the Mac and still use it on Windows, but you must select MS-DOS file system as the Volume Format.

PS: I just checked the forums and here is the data on that drive. Not supported on the Mac and you can only remove that locked partition on Windows 2000 or later.

http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-63205.html

Colin

[Denny Crane]

PS: I just checked the forums and here is the data on that drive. Not supported on the Mac and you can only remove that locked partition on Windows 2000 or later.

http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-63205.html

Colin

That makes it very clear -- the entire flash disk cannot be reformatted via Disk Utility or other non-Windows tools. Thus unless I have someone else reformat it in MS-DOS to remove the U3 portion, I'll just have to live with it. I already reformatted the rest of the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Thanks for the explanation.

[Bill]

That makes it very clear -- the entire flash disk cannot be reformatted via Disk Utility or other non-Windows tools. Thus unless I have someone else reformat it in MS-DOS to remove the U3 portion, I'll just have to live with it. I already reformatted the rest of the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Thanks for the explanation.

Denny

did you try initializing the drive at its root level in Disk Utility, as opposed to the volumes on the drive?

I've only seen SanDisks at work on the Dark Side, and I'm damned if I could remove that 'hidden' partition under Win XT - admittedly, I was working fast wanting to get to somewhere else at the time.

I'd love to have one here, to try with Disk Utility - I'd start with zapping the whole drive, not the volumes at /volume mount point.

If Disk Utility wouldn't do it, I think I know something which would: Drive Genius 2, if (like me) you're lucky and have that.

ATB

Bill

[Alan Wardroper]

Doesn't something like this work?

sudo -
fdisk /dev/sda
mkfs -t vfat /dev/sda1

[Denny Crane]

PS: I just checked the forums and here is the data on that drive. Not supported on the Mac and you can only remove that locked partition on Windows 2000 or later.

http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-63205.html

Colin

That makes it very clear -- the entire flash disk cannot be reformatted via Disk Utility or other non-Windows tools. Thus unless I have someone else reformat it in MS-DOS to remove the U3 portion, I'll just have to live with it. I already reformatted the rest of the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Thanks for the explanation.

Curiously, I have upgraded the OS on my office iMac to Leopard 10.5.5 from Tiger 10.4.11 (?) and the Flash Disk's extra U3 icon has disappeared. Go figure.

Norm