General Question

flash74686's avatar

Why does my empty flash drive read as full?

Asked by flash74686 (478points) December 27th, 2009

I’ve got the Ativa 4GB. This afternoon, I moved everything from it to my computer, leaving the drive (or so I thought) empty. Now, I’m trying to transfer files onto it and it says that there is not enough disk space.

Yet, when I go into the folders to delete whatever it is, nothing’s there.

Earlier I moved everything from the drive onto a Mac computer, and now, I’m trying to add files from a Windows XP, if it makes any difference.

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6 Answers

Muertoz's avatar

Format it, it will delete everything in it… if theres anything in it

Muertoz (44points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
dpworkin's avatar

Try reformatting it.

dpworkin (27085points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
rooeytoo's avatar

Also empty the trash, it needs room to work and sometimes emptying the trash will fix it.

rooeytoo (26981points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
RocketSquid's avatar

It’s probably formatted at FAT32. On a rare occasion, even if you have more than enough space, moving a file from an NTFS drive to a FAT32 will do this. If you format the drive to NTFS, you might have better luck.

RocketSquid (3483points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
wenn's avatar

did you empty the trash?

it wont delete it from the flash drive until the trash has actually been deleted.

wenn (2673points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
tekn0lust's avatar

As suggested above try formatting first. If the format fails then the drive has probably gone south and can no longer be trusted. Once the memory locations begin to fail anything you put on the drive can become corrupted.

I have seen this happen on flash drives that have been used a lot. They do go bad, especially the cheap give away kind.

tekn0lust (1868points)“Great Answer” (1points) Flag as…

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