Solved Invisible Space found in USB

[Vasanth M S]

Hi there, my friend has a 4GB USB. When ever he plugged it into any computer, he sees an invisible space occupied in default. We tried formatting, but it didn't help us. About 10MB or so is seen always occupied although there are no hidden files in that USB.

Can anyone tell me the problem? Is it corrupted? Or instead of fixing it, should he just throw it away and just buy a new one?

Please help us, answers needed.

 

[badger906]

it will just be the memory of the drive that basically tells windows what it is. think of it as a mini bios. windows does the same theres always like 100mb of unallocated space on a 1tb hard drive.

10mb from 4gb is like 0.25% of the total storage.. not exactly a lot lol

 

[Vasanth M S]

Sure it's not a big space, but that tiny pre-occupied amount does not allow music files to play in car stereos, may be because it reads that invisible data first. But this problem was not there when he first bought the USB.
Moreover my USB is the same, but it never showed up any thing like this.

 

[badger906]

are you sure your friend just has view hidden files turned on from within windows and you dont?

also have you formatted it to non fat32. not many devices that arent computers will recognise the ntsc file form

 

[Vasanth M S]

The USB is in NTFS format, and i am sure that the "View hidden files" is turned on, on both the computer.

 

[jumanji]

Where does your friend see the 10MB space? Can you please upload a screenshot?

Alongwith upload the screenshot of your pen drive ( which you say is the same brand and capacity) where it does not show that 10MB space?

Let us have a look at it and then analyse the situation. Pictures say a lot more than words and words can be misinterpreted differently by different people.

Also let us have the brand name and model of those pen drives. (both your friend's and yours)

 

[badger906]

yeah sorry I meant ntfs. most systems Other than windows dont see it. you only need ntfs if youre using files larger than 4gb. anything else is fine as a fat32.

 

[TVeblen]

Agree with the Badger^

When you format a thumb drive with NTFS, that 10MB is used up for the file system. FAT32 uses far less space for the file system.

Your car stereo may only work with FAT32. NTFS may be unreadable.

 

[jumanji]

Not only that some car stereos may not recognise particular brand/model pen drive even if it is in FAT32.

About four or five years ago, I bought a SanDisk Cruzer Micro for use with my JVC Car A/V system and it wouldn't read. Then I went and bought a Transcend pen drive which worked fine.( I am still using the SanDisk Cruzer Micro 8GB on my PC)