home > A computer > An 8 GB flash drive shows less. The flash drive has become smaller: simple recommendations for memory recovery

An 8 GB flash drive shows less. The flash drive has become smaller: simple recommendations for memory recovery

Many people working with flash-memory cards (flash drives), for example photographers, sometimes face a problem - the flash drive has decreased in volume. Moreover, this can happen unexpectedly - imagine the situation - you insert a USB drive and instead of the expected 4Gb of memory you see that you have only 56 Mb on the flash drive.

As it was not strange to decide this problem You can use standard Windows tools. It is worth noting immediately that situations are different. This method is not 100%. But he can really help. Let's take this situation as an example. A 16 GB flash drive has lost 50% of its memory. After that, only 8 GB became available on it!

As mentioned earlier, there is a solution and it is quite simple. Almost anyone, finding himself in a similar situation, will be able to restore the full volume of his flash drive in just a minute.
So, let's begin. First, open the Disk Manager. For this:

Open the "Control Panel" (Start \ Control Panel).
Open the "Administration" element.
- If you have Windows 7, 8, 10, then enter the phrase “administration” in the search bar (top right), and the corresponding item will appear in the control panel.
- If you have Windows Vista, then switch the control panel to "classic view" in the menu on the left, if you have not already done so.
Open the "Computer Management" item. (Also, steps 1 to 3 can be completed even faster - for this you just need to right-click on the "My Computer" shortcut on the desktop, and select the "Manage" menu item).
Click on the "Disk Management" item in the tree on the left.

So, we see that the flash drive (in our case it is EOS_DIGITAL J :) is divided in a very strange way. Half busy active section, and half of the flash drive is simply not labeled. We click on the active partition and see a sad picture - we can neither delete this partition nor expand it to the entire volume of the flash drive.

We click on the unallocated area with the right mouse button and see an even sadder picture - we cannot do anything with the unallocated area. (To put it simply, if you imagine a flash drive as a bottle with two compartments, then in this case there is water in one compartment, and the second one is completely closed from filling with water).

Okay, it's time to repair the flash drive. Open the Start menu and type "cmd" into the search bar. Then we right-click on the item "cmd.exe" and then - "Run as administrator". You can also press the key combination Win + R (or Start \ Run ...) and enter there cmd and press Enter. Thus, we will open the command line - the console, with which you can perform many operations and run any system programs with additional options.

In the black window that opens, enter diskpart and press Enter. This will open a disk utility that can do more than the standard Windows interface.

Then we enter LIST disk and press Enter. You will see a list of drives connected to your computer. Now the most important point, you need to understand which of the drives is your sick flash drive. The best guideline is volume. To simplify your task, extract all the rest removable media from your computer - memory cards in the card reader, USB flash drives, external hard drives etc. So this list will be much smaller.

So, we look at the list and remember that our flash drive is 16 GB (as it is written on the box). Disk 0, 1 are not suitable, they are 698 GB each, which is clearly more, these are two hard drives. Disk 2 is not suitable, it is only 1886 MB, which is less than 2 GB, this is a flash drive in the built-in card reader. We skip disk 3 and 4 - they are not connected, disk 5 - 15 GB remains - this is our flash drive. You may ask: “Why? After all, our flash drive is 16 GB, and here it is 15!”. This is due to the fact that manufacturers actually indicate a larger volume on the package than what it actually is. The computer believes that 1 GB is 1024 MB, and flash drive manufacturers, indicating its volume, mean that 1 GB is 1000 MB. This is a known fact.

So, you have determined the number of your disk. In our example, this number is 5. Enter SELECT disk=5 and press Enter.

Thus, we inform the program that disk 5 is selected. The next step is to delete all partitions from the disk and, therefore, all the data that is on the disk will be lost. If there is something on your flash drive that you want to save, then it's time to copy the files you need from the flash drive to HDD computer. Remember: even if you forgot to copy the data from the flash drive before cleaning it, there is always a chance to recover the lost data. How to do it? For example, using the R-studio utility. But more on that in another article.

To clean up the flash drive, enter CLEAN and press Enter.

The program reports that Disk Cleanup was successful. Going back to the standard manager Windows drives and click the "Update" button. We see that our flash drive is now unallocated (using the example of a flash drive, like bottles - now two compartments have merged into one, and there is no water in them). We click on the unallocated space with the right mouse button and select "Create a simple volume ...".

We set the required parameters. If this is a flash drive for a camera, camcorder, TV, etc. it is most likely better to choose the FAT32 file system. The cluster size is the default. It is better to keep the volume label as it was before formatting. The example used a Canon camera, so the volume label is EOS_DIGITAL. Although, in principle, you can write anything there :) Check the “quick formatting” box so that the process itself goes faster, and click “Next”.

At the end of formatting, the properties of the flash drive became what they should be.

Sometimes a flash drive, after formatting or incorrectly ejecting, starts to incorrectly display the size of the memory - for example, instead of 16 GB, only 8 GB or even less is available. There is another situation in which the declared size is initially much larger than the actual volume. Let's look at both cases to figure out how to restore the correct drive size.

Step-by-step instructions for restoring volume

To restore the actual size of the flash drive, you need to perform a low-level format. As a result, all data will be deleted from the flash drive, so first transfer the information to another medium.

You have received a completely clean media, now you need to re-partition it. This procedure is performed through the task manager:

After formatting is complete, the drive will return to its original size. If you have a flash drive from Transcend, you can restore it to its actual size using the free Transcend Autoformat utility. This program independently determines the volume of the flash drive and returns its correct display.

The utility from Transcend will carry out low-level formatting, after which the actual available memory will be displayed in the properties of the flash drive.

Working with Chinese flash drives

Chinese flash drives bought on Aliexpress and other similar online sites for little money often have one hidden drawback - they real capacity significantly lower than stated. The flash drive says 16 GB, but you can read from it no more than 8 GB - the rest of the information is not actually written anywhere.

This effect is achieved by flashing the controller. If the recorded files do not exceed the actually available volume of the flash drive, then you will not understand that you have been deceived until you encounter the fact that some of the information has disappeared. But you can determine the size of the drive in advance, without bringing the matter to an unpleasant situation:

If the actual size of the drive corresponds to the declared parameter, then the test will end with the phrase "Test finished without errors". If the memory of the flash drive is actually not so voluminous, then you will see a report in which there will be two lines - “OK” and “LOST”.

“OK” is the real memory of the flash drive, the amount that you can fill with data. "LOST" is a fake value, an empty space known only to the flashed controller. In order not to get confused, you need to restore the real volume of the drive. You can do this with a free Chinese program MyDiskFix. The utility does not have a Russian-language interface, so you will have to navigate by the screenshot.

A flash drive is currently an essential attribute for people who are related to computer technology in Everyday life or at work. Most often, when buying a flash card, the buyer pays attention to its volume, pricing policy, missing the moment about its manufacturer and reliability. Unfortunately, situations often occur when the owner tries to transfer the necessary materials to the device, but receives an answer that there is not enough space on the USB drive. The problem when a free capacity of several megabytes is indicated instead of the declared 8 or 16 gigabytes is not only a huge surprise for the owner, but also causes a lot of trouble due to the fact that there is no way to download the necessary large files. Consider in the article what to do if the volume of the flash drive has decreased, how to increase it.

Most often, the reason that the volume of the flash drive has decreased is a program failure, as a result of which the memory of the flash drive is divided into two parts: the serviceable one, which the user sees as active, can use it, and the unallocated one, which is an inactive memory area of the drive.

First method

Before proceeding with the recovery of the drive's memory, it is worth making sure of the cause of the malfunction. If the reason is precisely in the wrong memory allocation, and not in the fact that the purchased device is of unknown origin, its real volume does not correspond to the one declared by the seller, then you can start restoring the functionality of the device.

Sometimes the source of the problem may have roots that are completely unrelated to program issues drive. The fact is that in the sales market, with the growing demand for USB drives, there are often defective products that have a large declared size and are sold at a low price. Most often, these are flash drives from unknown manufacturers that have low performance, as well as memory that does not correspond to reality. In such a situation, it will be impossible to restore the memory of the device, therefore it would be a reasonable decision to immediately return it to the seller in accordance with the law on consumer rights and purchase a high-quality flash drive from well-known suppliers that are licensed to sell drives and provide a quality guarantee.

If the memory of the drive became smaller during its operation and at the same time the size corresponded to the one declared by the manufacturer, then, most likely, the reason is the incorrect distribution of memory, which can be diagnosed by several methods.

In order to verify the cause of the malfunction, you need to open the "Disk Management" window. This can be done in two ways. The first involves pressing the Win + R key combination, which brings up the Run pop-up window. AT command line you need to enter diskmgmt.msc, click the Enter key.

You can see that the flash drive (in this case EOS_DIGITAL J :) is divided in a very strange way - half is occupied by the active partition, and half is simply not partitioned

Second method

The second option involves logging in through the "Computer". You need to go through the control panel to the "Administrative Tools" utility, select the "Computer Management" menu. After that, through the "Storage devices" you need to go to "Disk Management", which displays all the storage devices connected to the PC.

On the name of the flash drive, you need to double-click the left button, the real state of its memory will be displayed in the window that appears. If the drive's memory is not properly allocated, the window will display two panes. One of them will be marked in blue, this is the volume with which you can work, and a black rectangle with inactive memory. If you click on this section, you can see that the program at this stage does not allow you to increase or recombine memory blocks. Do not rush to close this window, it will still come in handy during the procedure when we restore the drive's memory.

Let us consider further in detail how to restore the memory of the drive, or rather, how to increase the memory of a flash drive to the size declared by the manufacturer.

The flash drive shows a smaller volume: how to restore memory

As already mentioned, during operation, the memory of a standard drive can be significantly reduced due to its improper operation. By the previous actions, we made sure that the problem is precisely in the incorrect allocation of the drive's memory. In order to increase the volume of the flash drive, it is necessary through the "Start" menu in the "Find" line to enter cmd command, and the Programs window will appear. In it, select the item "cmd.exe", and in the drop-down list "Run as Administrator".

Step 1

After the manipulations, a black window will appear on the PC desktop. In it, it will be necessary to change the memory allocation of the flash drive. This is a low-level PC program that will allow you to increase the storage capacity.

At the command line of the program, where the cursor is located, you need to enter the diskpart command and press the Enter key. Next, enter List disk and Enter, after which the disk management window will open, in which removable media will be displayed.

Step 2

Now it remains to understand which of the disks is the flash drive the user needs, since absolutely all the memory sources that are on the PC will be displayed. In the window, you need to pay attention to such main parameters: "Disk number", "Status" and "Size". You can exclude those disc names that have the status "No media" in the status bar. Analyze the remaining drives by size and use the elimination method to determine the number of the disk to be restored and which is a flash drive. Next, you need to enter SELECT disk=№ in the command line, where № is the number of the disk under which the drive is located, and press the Enter key.

The window will display "Disk # selected". After that, the CLEAN command and Enter are entered.

It is worth noting that after entering this command, all data from the flash drive will be deleted and it will be impossible to restore them, because if the drive has important information, take care of saving the necessary materials in advance. If everything is done correctly, the program will issue a summary "Disk cleanup completed successfully." This completes the work in the command window.

Step 3

Next, you need to go to the window that was opened earlier, when diagnosing a malfunction, with the memory allocation areas of the drive, and update it. After the update, the entire memory of the flash drive becomes unallocated, black.

We right-click on the unallocated partition and select "Create a simple volume" in the drop-down list, after which the "Create Simple Volume Wizard" window will appear. In the window, it is necessary to mark the command “Format this volume as follows” and set the file system parameters, cluster size and volume label required for the user, then check the box next to the phrase “Quick format” and click the “Next” button.

Upon completion of formatting, the technical parameters of the flash drive will return to their previous form, the volume of the flash drive will be restored.

Summing up

Due to improper use of the drive or the use of an incorrect software on a PC, the volume of a flash drive can decrease tenfold, which will cause significant trouble to the user. Do not rush to throw away the device, simple manipulations will help restore the drive to working capacity and extend its service life for a significant period.

By following the simple recommendations outlined in this article, you can restore the size of a flash drive to its original factory settings. Buy only high-quality devices and operate according to the manufacturer's recommendations - this will save you from the recurrence of problems of this kind.

Sometimes there is a situation when a flash drive suddenly decreases in volume. The most common reasons for this situation are incorrect extraction from the computer, incorrect formatting, poor quality drive and the presence of viruses. In any case, you should understand how to solve such a problem.

Depending on the cause, several solutions can be used. We will consider all of them in detail.

Method 1: Scan for viruses

There are viruses that make files on a flash drive hidden, and they are not visible. It turns out that the flash drive seems to be empty, but there is no space on it. Therefore, if there is a problem with placing data on a USB drive, you need to check it for viruses. If you don't know how to check, please read our instructions.

Method 2: Special utilities

Often, Chinese manufacturers sell cheap drives through online stores. They may have a hidden drawback: their real capacity differs significantly from the declared one. They can stand 16 GB, and only 8 GB work.

Often, when purchasing a high-capacity flash drive at a low price, the owner has problems with the inadequate operation of such a device. This indicates clear signs that the actual size of the USB drive is different from what is displayed in the properties of the device.

To correct the situation, you can use special program AxoFlashTest. It will restore the correct drive size.

And although the size will be smaller, you don't have to worry about your data.

Some major flash drive manufacturers provide free volume recovery utilities for their flash drives. For example, Transcend has free utility Transcend Autoformat.

This program allows you to determine the volume of the drive and return its correct value. It is easy to use. If you have a Transcend flash drive, then do this:

Method 3: Check for bad sectors

If there are no viruses, then you need to check the drive for the content of bad sectors. You can check with standard Windows Tools. To do this, follow these steps:

One day I was about to put a 4 GB folder on my 16 GB flash drive, and I saw a surprising message that there was not enough space on the media, although there were no other files there. I looked in the properties and saw that the flash drive had shrunk in size, and was now about 120 MB. I thought formatting would solve the problem and I tried. However, even after formatting, the previous size of the flash drive did not return. If you have the same problem, then this article will help you.

As a rule, a decrease in the size of a flash drive is a virtual malfunction, which manifests itself in the fact that the storage device is divided into two areas, one of which is marked (the one that is visible to us), and the second is unallocated (we do not see it in Explorer and nothing we can do with it). Flash drive repair in this case consists in combining and properly marking these areas.

We make a diagnosis

Before proceeding, make sure that your flash drive has decreased in size precisely because it was not divided into parts correctly. To make a diagnosis, do the following:

Connect your flash drive to your computer.
In the window that opens, enter diskmgmt.msc and click OK.
The Disk Management window will appear, in which you need to find your removable disk.

You should see a picture similar to the one shown in the screenshot - part of the disk with the status "Healthy", and the other "Unallocated".

We diagnose the problem

If so, then congratulations - now we will fix everything!

How to fix a flash drive

If the flash drive has decreased in size due to improper partitioning, then in order to fix the problem, you will need to follow the steps described below. There will be nothing difficult. The flash drive must be connected to the computer.

Press the combination "Win + R" on the keyboard.
In the window that opens, enter cmd.exe and click"OK".
In the command prompt that appears, type diskpart and press the "Enter" key. This command launches a disk utility that is more powerful than the one described above.
Now enter listdisk and press "Enter". You will see a list of media. You need to find in this list the disk that is your flash drive. You can only navigate by the volume of the device (the real volume of the flash drive will be shown here, and not the one that has decreased).

When a flash drive is found in the list, write selectdisk=N and press "Enter". "N" is the disk number in the list.
When the drive is selected, write clean and press "Enter". A message will appear indicating that the disk cleanup was successful.

We clean the flash drive

The flash drive is clean. Now we need to label it properly. To do this, again go to "Disk Management" (Combination "Win + R", command diskmgmt.msc and "Ok".)
We find our flash drive in the list, right-click on it and select "Create a simple volume".
The Create Simple Volume Wizard opens. Bring his work to the end, and your flash drive will return to its previous size.