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Help needed with USB Flash Drive Problem - disappearing space

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donnyboy09

macrumors member
Original poster
While I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this question, here goes:

About 10 minutes ago, while trying to copy some music from a (windows) desktop onto a Sandisk 'Cruzer Micro' 4GB USB key an error came up saying that there wasn't sufficient space available. When looking at the properties there is apparently 3.72 GB used (capacity 3.74GB) (and this was double-checked using my macbook). Now the problem is - there is no way that there is that much stuff on the USB key. When everything on the drive was copied to my macbook, the total size was only just above 100MB. Now, the question is, where has the rest (over 3.5GB) of the 'space' gone?

Has this happened to anyone else? Any suggestions?

The USB key is around half a year old and was working perfectly fine two weeks ago (the last time I used it).

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
 
Copy the stuff you need off the drive onto your computer and then format the flash drive; then move the stuff you need back and try again.
 
this has happened to me. apparently when you delete stuff off the drive, if you dont empty the trash afterword with it still plugged in, the stuff dissapears but the drive stays filled up. its obnoxious bc you have to figure out which computer needs the trash emptied and such. formatting should wipe it though
 
zao8350 said:
this has happened to me. apparently when you delete stuff off the drive, if you dont empty the trash afterword with it still plugged in, the stuff dissapears but the drive stays filled up. its obnoxious bc you have to figure out which computer needs the trash emptied and such. formatting should wipe it though
Click to expand...

Yep, exactly.

You might also try inserting it into a PC and making sure "show hidden files" is checked. It is possible you might have something on there or risdual files that are eating up your space.

But, the reformat is probably the easiest. 😀
 
Thanks everyone for the help. I'd already tried looking for any hidden files (there were none) but the erase and reformat did the trick

Thanks again
 
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