Interesting USB issue

[Stuman1]

So, I bought this cheap USB in Hong Kong, and I brought it home, and it's a bit buggy, but it worked all right. And I'm 99% sure that when I bought it and plugged it in it had an at least 2gb capacity. I haven't used it for a while, and now it says that it can only store 200mb? It also does this weird thing where it occasionally seems to wipe itself when I plug it back into the computer?

 

Does anyone know what could have happened to the capacity, or what is causing the wiping issue? Any help would be appreciated.

[MeepLikesToBuildPc's]

thats cheap usb sticks from hongkong in a nutshell.

[Stuman1]

thats cheap usb sticks from hongkong in a nutshell.

Yeah, that's what I thought, especially with the wiping issue. But I don't understand how it just lost capacity? I haven't even used it that much.

[MeepLikesToBuildPc's]

they usually just take very low capacity usb sticks and mod them so they show up with a bigger capacity.

 

Example: 16GB USB gets modded to show up as a 128GB one and you can write fine on it, but when you get past the 16gb, it still writes flawlessly but in the background its just corrupting everything.

[Syntaxvgm]

Generally 1 of 2 things happen-

1- they spoof the size. They do this with external hard drives, put a usb in it, and a coujple of bolts for wieght. 

OR 

They use jank flash memory that was tossed for quality control issues. I bought a 5$ 32GB usb stick for shits and giggles and it failed in less than a day despite the whole capacity working. Now the files copy, but they don't copy properly. 

[Dabombinable]

Its a 256MB USB that's been made to identify as having 2GB of space.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Have you formatted it at all? Or if it's formatting itself, it can use a weird format type that reduces the effective size of it. I had to format my USB stick to a Mac format at one point and it reduced it to around 500MB instead of 32GB. 

 

Also, that's kind of what you get with cheapo USB drives. It's best to buy a decent one that will last IMO, if you can keep it and not lose it. I just have my small Corsair travel one on my keys so I always know where it is. 

[UltraNeonGaming]

Never take candy or USB's from a shady place: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2896732/dont-trust-other-peoples-usb-flash-drives-they-could-fry-your-laptop.html

 

But really, it's probably a 256MB USB... Or it's formatted uncorrected.

 

inb4 1.5GB+2GB

[Stuman1]

Have you formatted it at all? Or if it's formatting itself, it can use a weird format type that reduces the effective size of it. I had to format my USB stick to a Mac format at one point and it reduced it to around 500MB instead of 32GB. 

 

Also, that's kind of what you get with cheapo USB drives. It's best to buy a decent one that will last IMO, if you can keep it and not lose it. I just have my small Corsair travel one on my keys so I always know where it is. 

Yeah, I think that I did format it at one point to work with my Mac. And for a decent USB, I recently ordered a 64gb Corsair Flash Voyager Go from Massdrop, and it's supposed to ship tomorrow

[Stuman1]

Never take candy or USB's from a shady place: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2896732/dont-trust-other-peoples-usb-flash-drives-they-could-fry-your-laptop.html

 

But really, it's probably a 256MB USB... Or it's formatted uncorrected.

 

inb4 1.5GB+2GB

Oh yeah, I saw that article on USB's that can fry your computer by constantly moving power around till it fries everything. Sounds pretty horrible.

[Dabombinable]

Never take candy or USB's from a shady place: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2896732/dont-trust-other-peoples-usb-flash-drives-they-could-fry-your-laptop.html

 

But really, it's probably a 256MB USB... Or it's formatted uncorrected.

 

inb4 1.5GB+2GB

That reminds me of an old Belkin optical mosue I had, it worked fine for 11 months then proceeded to fry the 2 left hand ports on my Presario R3000, I then bought a PCMCIA 4 port USB 2.0 card, as a replacement, which was subsequently lost.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Yeah, I think that I did format it at one point to work with my Mac. And for a decent USB, I recently ordered a 64gb Corsair Flash Voyager Go from Massdrop, and it's supposed to ship tomorrow

If you can, try formatting it back to something like FAT32 or ExFAT on a Mac, it should revert the size if it's not spoofed. The Voyager Go is a good choice, nice and reliable. 

[Stuman1]

If you can, try formatting it back to something like FAT32 or ExFAT on a Mac, it should revert the size if it's not spoofed. The Voyager Go is a good choice, nice and 

 

Thanks, I might try that some time, if I remember.