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So it initially works, then I used it on a Mac and unplugged it without safely removing it. Now on my Windows 7 Computer just displays a External Disk Drive and said it is not formatted.

Then I tried it on a Linux and it can display and manipulate the flash drive correctly. Is there anyway to fix my problem without re-formatting the flash drive? I don't think it would work. But SanDisk always have problems with their flash drives on my Win 7.

EDITS:

The data system is FAT32, but Windows doesn't seems to recognize. Model is: Cruzer Glide 32GB

Sometimes it would get fixed by rebooting my PC as some forum suggests, but this one wouldn't.

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  • What file system was the drive using? I have used dozens of Cruzers over the years, and I personal, never had a problem.
    – Ramhound
    Dec 3, 2013 at 14:16
  • You can paste the output of the following commands after connecting your USB Drive in Linux ? lsusb and dmesg
    – bbalegere
    Dec 22, 2013 at 18:16
  • I don't get why someone downvotes me, please explain? Dec 26, 2014 at 7:21

2 Answers 2

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Given the information provided, I'd say it's driver related. Copy/backup any data that's on the drive, reformat it using Windows, preferably using the windows defaults.

Cruzers are fairly generic. It shouldn't be having any sort of issue, even without safely removing from the Mac. Double check what OS version the Mac is running, then check if that version has cache writing disabled by default. If it is enabled by default, there may be some rouge bytes of data floating around your drive & causing problems. In that circumstance, a quick format should fix your USB drive.

There's also a chance that your Win 7 machine's driver store has some corrupt files & it's causing the problems. This theory is based on "...SanDisk always have problems with their flash drives on my Win 7."

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  • it is the newest Mac version. I don't see any new files written into it, or are they non-seeable? Dec 5, 2013 at 11:41
  • "The newest Mac version" doesn't tell me much (Native to windows, minor experience on Macs & Unix). From the Apple Menu on the Mac, left click "About this Mac". The Build number should be just beneath the large "OS X". Slap that number with the words "write cache" into a search engine, and you'll be able to find out if write caching is enabled by default. What location are you referencing? The USB Drive, the Win 7 machine/its driver store, or the Mac? Assuming you mean the USB drive, the corrupt data bytes aren't viable because they aren't a file or folder. They're small chunks of data.
    – Zach L
    Dec 5, 2013 at 18:24
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Open up a command prompt as administrator (open the Start menu, search for "Command Prompt", right-click and select "Run As Administrator". You'll get a black text-only window that pops up.

Type diskpart and press Enter. You'll end up with a new prompt that looks like this:

DISKPART> Type list disk, and you'll get a listing of all drives on your machine.

Type select disk # to select a disk, where # is the number of the disk you want to edit.

Then type list partition to get a listing of all partitions on the disk.

If you're sure you have the right disk/partition, you can then type select partition # and delete partition until all partitions are removed from that drive.

Once they're all removed, type create partition primary to create a new partition that covers the entire drive. Alternatively, at this point you can create multiple primary partitions of varying sizes as needed by appending SIZE=# (in MB) to the end of the create partition statement. Not specifying a size will use the entire disk.

Once the partition is created, type exit twice (to exit diskpart, and then to close the command prompt) and then use the format option to format that blank partition.

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