USB Storage Device

  • Thread starter Thread starter brian
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brian

I recently picked up a 16GB USB storage device at a computer show for $25.00
bucks, yeah I know, you get what you pay for. My computers all recognize it,
and shows it as a 16GB drive, but when I copy files to it, and then remove
it the files are not shown after it's plugged back in. If you check the
properties it shows that the amount of spaced used by the files is still
being used, but they can't be seen. I formatted it but that didn't help, it
just showed then that the drive had full capacity back.

Any ideas as to why I can't see the files?

Thanks,
Brian

-
 
brian said:
I recently picked up a 16GB USB storage device at a computer show for $25.00
bucks, yeah I know, you get what you pay for. My computers all recognize it,
and shows it as a 16GB drive, but when I copy files to it, and then remove
it the files are not shown after it's plugged back in. If you check the
properties it shows that the amount of spaced used by the files is still
being used, but they can't be seen. I formatted it but that didn't help, it
just showed then that the drive had full capacity back.

Any ideas as to why I can't see the files?

Thanks,
Brian
Click to expand...

That is a trick learned from Ebay. Big flash devices on Ebay are a fraud.
What the guys do, is set up the stick, so it declares 16GB, but if
there is any flash memory in there, it might be 2GB. Maybe you can
copy a small amount of data, and get to see it, but the thing is,
the storage area doesn't match the declaration. As you can imagine,
that does wonders for file system integrity.

"you get what you pay for"

Indeed.

http://reviews.ebay.com/BEWARE-of-F...ash-Drives-on-eBay_W0QQugidZ10000000001236200

Paul
 
Paul said:
That is a trick learned from Ebay. Big flash devices on Ebay are a fraud.
What the guys do, is set up the stick, so it declares 16GB, but if
there is any flash memory in there, it might be 2GB. Maybe you can
copy a small amount of data, and get to see it, but the thing is,
the storage area doesn't match the declaration. As you can imagine,
that does wonders for file system integrity.

"you get what you pay for"

Indeed.

http://reviews.ebay.com/BEWARE-of-F...ash-Drives-on-eBay_W0QQugidZ10000000001236200

Paul
Click to expand...

Paul,

It may indeed be a spoof drive, but the weird thing is I only copied a
couple of 25Kb text files just to see that it would work. Like I said it
shows the used space and the remainder space but I can't see any files,
weird

Brian
 
It may indeed be a spoof drive, but the weird thing is I only copied a
couple of 25Kb text files just to see that it would work. Like I said it
shows the used space and the remainder space but I can't see any files,
weird

Brian
Click to expand...

If you can't get your money back you might crack open the
drive to see what memory chips are inside, from that you can
determine the true capacity (unless they went one step
further and soldered fake (empty plastic) chips on it too).
 
brian said:
I recently picked up a 16GB USB storage device at a computer show
for $25.00 bucks, yeah I know, you get what you pay for. My
computers all recognize it, and shows it as a 16GB drive, but when
I copy files to it, and then remove it the files are not shown
after it's plugged back in. If you check the properties it shows
that the amount of spaced used by the files is still being used,
but they can't be seen. I formatted it but that didn't help, it
just showed then that the drive had full capacity back.

Any ideas as to why I can't see the files?
Click to expand...

The drive is hinting at the need to visit another show and try to
find a sucker with, say, $20.00, eager for a 16 GB drive. If
successful, sell, and go home.

Alternatively, try complaining to the manufacturer. Maybe you will
be extremely lucky and they will replace it.
 
brian said:
I recently picked up a 16GB USB storage device at a computer show for $25.00
bucks, yeah I know, you get what you pay for. My computers all recognize it,
and shows it as a 16GB drive, but when I copy files to it, and then remove
it the files are not shown after it's plugged back in. If you check the
properties it shows that the amount of spaced used by the files is still
being used, but they can't be seen. I formatted it but that didn't help, it
just showed then that the drive had full capacity back.

Any ideas as to why I can't see the files?

Thanks,
Brian

-
Click to expand...

OK. Let's assume for the moment that you have _not_ been ripped off by
some fraudster selling bogus memory. You say that you can plug it in,
format it, and then write to it. If you do not remove it, can you then
read from it successfully? I'd suggest that you try writing
progressively larger files to the device and then reading them back, all
the time leaving the device connected. If it works for anything
approaching 16gB of files then your problem is something besides fraud.
If you can get up to 2gB successfully and no more then you may be a
victim of someone offering a 16 giga-BIT memory device (or 2 giga-BYTEs)
and if so I'd be complaining to eBay.

If you can write and read back, then try removing the device but first
make sure that you go through the proper "remove device" steps. I'd
expect that you know already this but sometimes people don't know what I
expect them to. If you put the device back in then and don't see the
files, what happens if you run chkdsk on the device?
 
OK. Let's assume for the moment that you have _not_ been ripped off by
some fraudster selling bogus memory. You say that you can plug it in,
format it, and then write to it. If you do not remove it, can you then
read from it successfully? I'd suggest that you try writing
progressively larger files to the device and then reading them back, all
the time leaving the device connected. If it works for anything
approaching 16gB of files then your problem is something besides fraud.
If you can get up to 2gB successfully and no more then you may be a
victim of someone offering a 16 giga-BIT memory device (or 2 giga-BYTEs)
and if so I'd be complaining to eBay.
Click to expand...

As much as we all like giving ebay hell, I suspect a
computer show is a bit out of their jurisdiction. :-)


If you can write and read back, then try removing the device but first
make sure that you go through the proper "remove device" steps. I'd
expect that you know already this but sometimes people don't know what I
expect them to. If you put the device back in then and don't see the
files, what happens if you run chkdsk on the device?
Click to expand...

That's a good point, the drive ought to be tried on another
system too, also paying particular attention to safely
removing it.
 
brian said:
I recently picked up a 16GB USB storage device at a computer show for
$25.00 bucks, yeah I know, you get what you pay for. My computers all
recognize it, and shows it as a 16GB drive, but when I copy files to it,
and then remove it the files are not shown after it's plugged back in. If
you check the properties it shows that the amount of spaced used by the
files is still being used, but they can't be seen. I formatted it but that
didn't help, it just showed then that the drive had full capacity back.

Any ideas as to why I can't see the files?
Click to expand...

What method are you using to remove the USB drive? If you just pull it out,
then your files might not have actually been written to it yet.

When writing to USB and other devices, Windows shows a progress dialog and
then it looks like it has finished, but in actual fact, the files aren't
always written to the device in real time, but are sometimes cached
somewhere in the system and written to the USB device later. When you remove
the USB device, you should double click on the "safely remove hardware"
(looks like this - http://tinyurl.com/6v6e5). In there, you choose which
device you want to remove and 'stop the device'. Only then should you remove
it!
 
G> When writing to USB and other devices, Windows shows a progress dialog
G> and then it looks like it has finished, but in actual fact, the files
G> aren't always written to the device in real time, but are sometimes
G> cached somewhere in the system and written to the USB device later.

on Windows XP defaul setting is "optimize for fast removal" -- that means
that data is written as soon as possible.
also, this buffer is relatively small, so in most cases it's enough to wait
some 5 seconds.
 
Alex Mizrahi said:
G> When writing to USB and other devices, Windows shows a progress dialog
G> and then it looks like it has finished, but in actual fact, the files
G> aren't always written to the device in real time, but are sometimes
G> cached somewhere in the system and written to the USB device later.

on Windows XP defaul setting is "optimize for fast removal" -- that means
that data is written as soon as possible.
also, this buffer is relatively small, so in most cases it's enough to
wait some 5 seconds.
Click to expand...

Maybe, but its clearly not the case here. If you are experiencing problems
such as removing a USB drive and finding the files missing, then surely
going through the correct channels (safely remove hardware) would be a
reasonable thing to test?!?
 
kony said:
As much as we all like giving ebay hell, I suspect a
computer show is a bit out of their jurisdiction. :-)




That's a good point, the drive ought to be tried on another
system too, also paying particular attention to safely
removing it.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Somehow eBay inserted itself. Maybe another post. Maybe I've read
so many complaints of such things from eBay buyers that my synapses
fired down that branch. Or maybe I just wasn't paying attention. But the
troubleshooting steps I wrote out still might help figure out what is
going on. I'd be especially interested in whether the files are there
and usable before the USB is unplugged and what the file structure looks
like after it is re-plugged. Could someone be selling a device with 16gB
of non-flash RAM?
 
Yeah. Somehow eBay inserted itself. Maybe another post. Maybe I've read
so many complaints of such things from eBay buyers that my synapses
fired down that branch. Or maybe I just wasn't paying attention. But the
troubleshooting steps I wrote out still might help figure out what is
going on. I'd be especially interested in whether the files are there
and usable before the USB is unplugged and what the file structure looks
like after it is re-plugged. Could someone be selling a device with 16gB
of non-flash RAM?
Click to expand...

It would cost even more and be much larger, so it seems
impossibly unlikely.
 
Maybe, but its clearly not the case here. If you are experiencing problems
such as removing a USB drive and finding the files missing, then surely
going through the correct channels (safely remove hardware) would be a
reasonable thing to test?!?
Click to expand...

Absolutely, though I almost always use "eject" on the volume
context menu instead (despise that annoying safely remove
hardware box, have too many items on it).
 
It may indeed be a spoof drive, but the weird thing is I only copied a
couple of 25Kb text files just to see that it would work. Like I said it
shows the used space and the remainder space but I can't see any files,
weird
Click to expand...

This is what is know as WOM - Write Only Memory. :-)
 
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