Troubles with my Sandisk Cruzer USB drive...

[sir42]

I recently bought the 512 MB SanDisk Cruzer Titanium. For the most part it’s great, but it’s begun to display some erratic behavior.

Yesterday my iBook told me that the Cruzer was full when there was nothing on it that appeared to be taking up any space. On a whim, I plugged the Cruzer into an XP machine and discovered a huge folder of erased items taking up space. For some reason I couldn’t see this folder on my iBook. I deleted the folder using the XP machine and then plugged the Cruzer back into my mac and all was well.

Is there a way to keep tabs on what the Cruzer is caching? Or better yet, to see the hidden folders on the drive using my mac? I’d rather not have to plug the drive into an XP machine every week for maintenance.

I’ve also had some trouble ejecting the drive. The first time I drag the drive icon to the trash I get an error message saying that the drive could not be ejected and that I should try exiting some programs (even if all my programs are closed). When I drag the drive icon to the trash the second time it ejects without a hitch. Is there something I can do about this?

I carry a lot of sensitive data on my Cruzer and I just want to make sure that it’s working the way it should.

Thanks!

 

[Black&Tan]

That sounds odd...maybe you should try reformatting the drive from your Mac. I seem to recall that I reformatted my 1GB drive after I bought it. I love my 1GB, very useful.....

 

[cubist]

Two caveats when using USB thumbdrives: (1) On Mac, always empty trash before dismounting (ejecting) the thumbdrive. (2) Always, always remember to eject the drive before taking it off. On Windows, double-click the systray icon and then click Remove on the dialog which appears. Always ALWAYS! Otherwise you will have massive data corruption.

In this case you probably didn't empty the trash.

 

[Moof1904]

I had the 256 meg version and after a while (10 months), it started flaking out on me. It would mount momentarily and then disappear and the Mac would report that the drive had not been removed properly. Same thing when I tried it on my PC. It had a two-year warranty, so I contacted tech support and they authorized a return. The return procedure did require a ton of communication using their annoying tech support messaging system, though.

 

[TDM21]

Two caveats when using USB thumbdrives: (1) On Mac, always empty trash before dismounting (ejecting) the thumbdrive. (2) Always, always remember to eject the drive before taking it off. On Windows, double-click the systray icon and then click Remove on the dialog which appears. Always ALWAYS! Otherwise you will have massive data corruption.

In this case you probably didn't empty the trash.

Correct. Unlike Windows, Mac OS creates a trash folder for every drive. When you move something on that drive to the trash, the file is actually moved to the trash folder. Until you tell the computer to delete trash, those files stay on the drive. Windows on the other hand, moves the files from the drive to the trash folder on the primary drive. From there they are deleted.

The reason you could no see the folder on the drive was due to the fact it is hidden from the User, just like how Windows hides files (notice the trash folder had a period at the start of the name). You can enable the option to see hidden files with programs like TinkerTools.

I remember back in the pre OS X days, there was also a desktop folder for each drive. If you moved something from a floppy to the desktop and then ejected the floppy the file on the desktop would disappear. Put the floppy back in and the file would return. Oh the frustration.

 

[daveL]

Correct. Unlike Windows, Mac OS creates a trash folder for every drive. When you move something on that drive to the trash, the file is actually moved to the trash folder. Until you tell the computer to delete trash, those files stay on the drive. Windows on the other hand, moves the files from the drive to the trash folder on the primary drive. From there they are deleted.

The reason you could no see the folder on the drive was due to the fact it is hidden from the User, just like how Windows hides files (notice the trash folder had a period at the start of the name). You can enable the option to see hidden files with programs like TinkerTools.

I remember back in the pre OS X days, there was also a desktop folder for each drive. If you moved something from a floppy to the desktop and then ejected the floppy the file on the desktop would disappear. Put the floppy back in and the file would return. Oh the frustration.

We had the same issue with our digital camera. We plugged it in, it mounted as a volume on OS X and all the pics previously trashed showed up in the trash can. Empties the trash and the pics were deleted from the camera.

 

[blodwyn]

As a suggestion, you could run Compost. This is an excellent utility for managing the size of the trash. It is customizable for each volume, so I've got it set to keep the trash on my Cruzer for 1 day only. This protects me against any 'Oops' moments, but keeps the trash size down to a minimum.