A situation in which a user inserts a removable USB drive into a port or card into a card reader and sees that the volume of the flash drive has decreased compared to the real one is quite common. The reasons for such failures can be counted very much, but basically, as most experts note, the appearance of such problems is most often characteristic of removable memory cards that are used in modern cameras. But for ordinary drives, the appearance of such situations, unfortunately, is also not uncommon.
For what reasons does the actual amount of flash memory decrease
The first step is to consider why exactly the size of drives of any type occurs. Usually, users pay attention to such things only when copying or saving files to the media becomes impossible, look at the properties of the removable disk in Explorer and are surprised that the volume of the flash drive has decreased. How to restore full size will be said separately, but for now, let's look at the root causes of this phenomenon.
In general, four main aspects can be distinguished, which will need to be taken into account when performing full volume recovery:
- viral exposure;
- file system crashes without shutting down the device;
- incorrect formatting;
- disturbances in the work of controllers.
From the whole list, the most strange thing is that it contains formatting. Removing the drive directly during this procedure does not take into account now, but consider as an example the most banal situation. The fact is that some cameras have built-in tools for formatting the memory cards used in them, but they are not formatted in the same way as originally assumed, reducing the actual size of the card, as a result of which an unallocated area is created on the media. This is seen on some cameras from the Canon EOS lineup. In general, by and large, it is recommended to use formatting with the tools of such devices only in the most extreme cases, when there is no computer or laptop with any operating system installed on them.
Viral exposure
Based on the above reasons, we will proceed to eliminate the problems that have arisen. It goes without saying that many modern viruses, well, just love to settle on removable drives, either infecting the files located on them, or creating their own (most often these are hidden Autorun.inf objects - such are elements of autorun of executable program files). So, if you see that the volume of the flash drive has decreased for no apparent reason, and the camera has not formatted the drive, first of all do a full scan of the drive for viruses.
You can use regular antiviruses, portable programs, and even bootable utilities under the general name Rescue Disk.
Preliminary actions before volume recovery
If no viruses have been detected, move on. Before starting to restore the full size of the memory of a removable device, first (if possible) just in case, copy the necessary information to the computer’s hard drive or transfer it to the logical partition.
After that, go to the disk management section (diskmgmt.msc) and look at all the displayed partitions. As a rule, if the volume of the flash drive has decreased by some amount, an unmarked area with an appropriate size will appear in the disk map. Immediately (again, if possible) try to combine the main drive partition with the unallocated area. If this does not work out (which most often happens), try to create a simple one, which, however, may also not give a result (the corresponding commands in the RMB menu will simply be unavailable). Since this section cannot be used yet, you need to perform other actions.
Checking the flash drive for errors and standard formatting
As one of the simplest options, some experts recommend using the standard Windows system tool to check the drive for errors with their automated correction, which can be accessed through the removable disk properties section in Explorer.
For systems of versions below the eighth, troubleshooting items must be specified manually. A much more attractive look is through the command line, which must be called on behalf of the administrator, and then run the command chkdsk x: / f / r in it, where x is the drive letter displayed in the system.
If this does not solve the problem, you can use formatting (full is preferable), again, using one of the standard tools of the system. If you work with memory cards, it is better to leave FAT32 as the preferred file system, NTFS for standard flash drives.
Note: keep in mind that all information previously present on the drive will be deleted, but you can restore it if necessary in the R-Studio program.
Using command line tools
But let's assume that the volume of the flash drive decreased, the user tried to restore the full size, but the previous technique did not work. In this situation, you will again need a command console that will use the DISKPART toolkit. First, the command of the same name is entered, and after it the line list disk is written. All available sections appear in the list. But how much does the flash drive correspond to the real situation? Look specifically at the size of the sections, comparing them with what should be.
Suppose this is drive number five. Next, select the disk for operations (select disk = 5), and then run the clean command.
Disk Management Partition Tools
After the above operations, close the command console and go to the disk management section. If it is already open, just click the refresh button.
Now, on the unallocated area through RMB, select the creation of a simple volume, at one of the stages, format (you can specify fast) and wait for the Wizard to complete. After that, in the usual "Explorer" the full volume will be displayed.
Note: markup can also be done in the command console immediately after cleaning by running the create partition primary command, after which either standard formatting or formatting using the console itself can be applied.
How to check a flash drive for memory and restore space by third-party programs
In some cases, it may be advisable to use third-party applications that are designed to troubleshoot specific devices. Typically, such utilities can be found directly on the website of flash drive manufacturers. This can be a program for formatting a flash drive, an application for checking media, etc.
In our case, the best option would be a check with the subsequent restoration of the full volume that can be performed by the AxoFlashTest utility. In it, for automatic troubleshooting, it is necessary to perform both a volume test and a speed test.
If this does not help, use a program for formatting a flash drive called AutoFormat from Transcend, select the type of drive, check the box for full formatting and wait for the process to complete.
Brief Summary
That's all with regard to eliminating problems associated with spontaneous reduction in the volume of removable storage media. It remains to add that for cases with the failure of the controllers (damage to the factory firmware) it is better to use "native" utilities for recovery from the manufacturer or use low-level formatting programs like HDD Low Level Format Tool, which are suitable even for situations with changing the file system to an unreadable format RAW.