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Thread ID: 83959 2007-10-19 08:37:00 How to test a USB stick ?? hotkiwi (6379) Press F1
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603056 2007-10-19 08:37:00 Friends, I thought I made a good deal and bought a 16 GB (!) USB stick over trademe. It appears that after loading the stick with about 3 GB the files are distorted and have very strange, random names allocated. i did a quick format of the stick (it will not format in NTSF) and that goes well. The sticks asks to run a Windows program to repair damaged sectors and I run that one as well, Still next time it happens again. Is there a little program to really test the 16GB, is there a way to say I did not make a big mistake and wasted 160 $ ?
Cheers
Johan
hotkiwi (6379)
603057 2007-10-19 11:31:00 Brand and model of the USB stick? Perhaps you can check out the properties of the USB memory stick and see what's the capacity?

I hope it is not one of those "doggie style". :rolleyes:

Cheers :)
Renmoo (66)
603058 2007-10-19 16:31:00 And what version of Windows, are you using? 2k or XP + I take it?

And WHAT did you format it in? FAT or FAT32?
Speedy Gonzales (78)
603059 2007-10-20 00:50:00 Ahum, brand ? Dunno. Properties says 16 GB avaibale. Formatted in FAT32 and I use Vista Business. hotkiwi (6379)
603060 2007-10-23 02:59:00 It might be worth creating a subdirectory on the stick and copying files to that rather than to the root directory.

You might be getting problems with the limited number of files allowed in the root directory of a FAT file system. I believe MS have made some changes to the file system so that more files can be put in the root directory, but there is at least one major bug in that "fix".
Graham L (2)
603061 2007-10-23 04:07:00 Ahum, brand ? Dunno. Properties says 16 GB avaibale. Formatted in FAT32 and I use Vista Business.

The FAT32 file system has limits on file size too. Just something to check.

support.microsoft.com

Note that your O/S should not be a factor here.
Sweep (90)
603062 2007-10-23 04:14:00 The OS might be a factor. :D

The added "feature" which allows more files in the root directory will be XP only. If XP assumes that it exists, and the filesystem on the USB stick doesn't have it, bad things could happen. Bad things [b]are[/ b] happening.
Graham L (2)
603063 2007-10-25 23:33:00 It MAY be a bogus sized stick, ie actually a smaller size 'hacked' to appear
16G.
I wont but usb stick, SD memory cards etc off trademe any more as they dont seem very reliable(half of them failed). Sticks bought from shops seem alot more
reliable (for me).

Seems that there are some chinese sourced generic MP3 players that are 1G
hacked to appear 4G. They work OK untill you try to add more than 1G of files.
steveroby (9470)
603064 2007-10-26 01:18:00 Your USB may be able to be converted to allow NTFS formating - i.e Vista may need to be optimized via it's policy. Read this (forums.techguy.org)(scroll to the last couple of comments). It shows a possible procedure. Failing that you may need a driver or utility update to allow NTFS. But you need to know the device's USB name, but here is a link (www.everythingusb.com)on such a utility (based on the alcor chip) - It seemed to work for some... kahawai chaser (3545)
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