495MB Empty USB shows 307MB Used Space

Asked By Bobby Andrews 10 points N/A Posted on - 06/24/2011

Hi all,

I have an Imation USB with 495 MB capacity.  I know that the USB does not have any files inside it, but when I checked the properties it shows that, it is not.

I thought that maybe there are hidden files on the drive. So what I did was, to show the hidden files by going to folder options and changing the view settings to show all hidden files, drives and folders.  But I did not find anything hidden.

I also tried emptying the recycle bin from my desktop. It didn't work either. My last resort was to reformat the USB. After the reformat, I thought it will fix the problem, but it didn't.

The USB is already old, and I use it only to transfer temporary files from my desktop computer to another computer in the office that is not connected to the network. Buying a new one is not a problem, but I am really curious about solving the problem just in case it happens again if I buy a new USB.

How do I solve this problem?

Thank you!

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• Question Category: Storage Misc

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Answered By SaraT 0 points N/A #130897

495MB Empty USB shows 307MB Used Space

This may happen when you have “Don’t show Hidden folder, files and Drives” turned on in your PC which is usually by default. You are having some hidden files in your USB drive so you cannot see under the circumstances. Well there is an easy solution to this depending on what you want to do.

 If you want to see the hidden files in the drive you can follow the instructions below:

1. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Appearance and Personalization -> Folder Options
2. Click on the View Tab and make sure “Show Hidden folder, files and Drives” is clicked
3. Click Apply and then OK

You should now see your folders/files in your USB Drive.

OR

If you just want to delete all files in the drive you can follow these instructions:

1. Go to Start -> Computer
2. Right click on your USB Drive and select Format
3. Click on start and follow the instructions.

Cheers!!

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• Posted on - 06/24/2011
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Answered By CM Punk 0 points N/A #130898

495MB Empty USB shows 307MB Used Space

This is most probably a virus problem. As you said there were no hidden files & folders.

So I advise you to connect it to a computer with registered antivirus. Just never double click on it before scanning.

Then Format it. If you can't do it then you should know it is having a hardware problem.

So you can do nothing with it.

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• Posted on - 07/22/2011
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Answered By Sharath Reddy 590495 points N/A #310654

495MB Empty USB shows 307MB Used Space

I also have an Imation USB flash drive and they have this kind of flash drive where you can create two partitions: a public and a private. The private partition is automatically hidden and you need to run an unlock program and enter a password to access the hidden partition. When you log out from the partition, you will automatically go back to the public partition.

Since you also have an Imation USB flash drive, check if the drive originally has an unlock program included. Unfortunately, this unlock program can be deleted from the drive. Now, since you already formatted the drive, the unlock program must have been deleted already. Without it, there’s no way to access the private partition. The Imation unlock program is called “Imation LOCK.exe”.

No matter how many times you format the flash drive, the private partition will remain hidden and untouched. That’s probably why you still see used space on the drive even if you already formatted it. To recover the missing space of your drive, you need to download the “Imation LOCK.exe” file and copy it to your flash drive and then run it.

Unfortunately, the Imation website is no longer up after its acquisition. You probably need to search other websites for this file or try copying the file from other Imation USB flash drives then see if it works.

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