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Portable Apps ate half my thumbdrive space...

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February 11, 2009 - 6:30pm
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vactus
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Portable Apps ate half my thumbdrive space...

In case the title isn't clear enough:

Back in October I downloaded and installed vs 1.1 on an 8GB Sandisk thumbdrive. It went fine and everything worked, however after I did that my sandisk only showed 4GB available total instead of the 8GB that I had on it before hand. Why is this a problem now? I didn't really notice until recently since I had it sitting next to my PC and had not used it but maybe a few times after the install.

Now I want my space back. I did the recommended uninstall and even formatted... still only shows 4GB of freakin space. Nothing else was on the drive prior to the install and afterwards I didn't install anything else. WTF? I've searched all over for a solution and found nothing. Either way I'm done with PortableApps. Didn't really need in the first place and definitely don't need it now.

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February 11, 2009 - 6:56pm
John T. Haller
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Can't

Hi vactus. What you're describing is not technically possible for a piece of software to do. Even a malicious piece of software... unless it was embedding itself in Windows.

Once you format a drive, the PortableApps.com Platform and all apps and data are gone.

Where did you get the device? Many flash drives sold online are faked to show more space than they actually have. If you got it from a reputable retailer, perhaps the U3 uninstall didn't work right. You could try reinstalling and then uninstalling U3 (unlike portable apps, U3 actually changes the configuration of the hardware on your device and can cause issues).

If all that fails, I'd say a warranty replacement would be in order as it would be a hardware issue (the drive has a physical defect). Your product is under warranty for 2 to 5 years and you should be able to get a replacement from Sandisk.

Hope that helps you out and explains it all. And welcome to PortableApps.com. Smile

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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February 12, 2009 - 12:03pm
th3wildwolf
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Try to format with HP USB disk storage format tool

I had a similar problem when a flash drive after I formatted it under Linux lost some space. Formatting it with windows didn't help but this program regained it.
Hope it helps!

HP USB disk storage format tool:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,64963-order,4-page,1-c,periphe...

Please do not remove the link because it is freeware and the program is extremely usefull for flash drive owners.

Artificial intelligence stands no chance against natural stupidity!

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April 15, 2009 - 8:57pm
munan
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If I had to guess, and this

If I had to guess, and this is just a guess, I'd say you have a "secure" version of a Sandisk product. They install software that partitions the drive into an unsecure and secure drive. Only one can be active at a time. You most likely have installed the software and inadvertently split your drive in half.
Just run the software again and tell it to remove the secure side. Then you have all 8 gigs on one drive.

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April 16, 2009 - 8:49am
RMB Fixed
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..

JTH wrote :
"What you're describing is not technically possible for a piece of software to do"

Actually, it is possible . If people for instance use an outdated version of
"Universal Customizer (UC)" they will loose everything above 4GB because early UC
simply doesn't recognise more .. This could be a problem if people try to use one of the alternative U3 menus/launchers like SmithTechs .

It's also possible that "munan" is right. I've seen that happen a few times .
(btw : technically it's not 2 partitions, it's 2 separate LUN's )
The solution here is to run the launchpad from the CD-ROM and remove the password .

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