s.b. Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 After losing my USB drive last week I bought a Survivor 8GB GT. After receiving the drive this morning I tried writing some of my work files to it, Windows came back with the following message - 'Windows - Delayed write failed'. After disconnecting the drive using 'Safely Remove Hardware' then reconnecting, windows then informed me that the drive needed to be formatted. After numerous attempts at disconnecting the drive and even restarting my computer Windows still didn't recognise it as being already formatted. I gave up and tried formatting the drive, Windows then informed me that the capacity was now only 3.85GB. I then came here to the forums and found instructions for formatting through DOS, tried that but still only 3.85GB. What's wrong with this thing, I payed nearly twice as much for it than most other 8GB drives out there so that I'd have something I could rely on and not have to go through this sort of crap. I'm really starting to miss my old one, it was just a cheap 512MB stick and pretty slow but it never gave me any trouble. Does anyone know of anything else I can try? I'm fairly certain this is a dud but wanted to make sure first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted February 7, 2008 Corsair Employee Share Posted February 7, 2008 Let's get it replaced, please use the On Line RMA Request Form and we will be happy to replace it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doogie Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 Is there any chance that you selected FAT 16 when reformatting the drive in XP? If so, it will limit you to a 4GB volume...try FAT32 or NTFS :biggrin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s.b. Posted February 8, 2008 Author Share Posted February 8, 2008 Doogie, didn't have any option in windows but to format as FAT 32, funny thing is though, when I checked the drive out in HD Tune it showed the drive as being formatted as FAT16. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wired Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 Try this. NOTE: THIS WILL ERASE THE DRIVE. From a command Prompt: For FAT32: Format (X:) /FS:FAT32 /U (X=the drive letter assigned to the Flash Voyager) For NTFS: Format (X:) /FS:NTFS /U (X=the drive letter assigned to the Flash Voyager). And you may have to change the properties of the drive to non removable to format to NTFS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xtreeme Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 If operating system is XP. command prompt Start - All Programs - Accessories - Command Prompt You may already know that but I figured I would mention just in case, plus it might help someone later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s.b. Posted February 8, 2008 Author Share Posted February 8, 2008 Thanks Wired and Xtreeme, I tried reformatting but still only 3.85GB, looks like it's dead or half dead anyway. I'm really dissapointed in this drive, thought I was buying something that would be good quality and reliable considering the amount of money I payed for it. thanks for the offer of a replacement Ram Guy but I don't know if I'd feel real confident in a another survivor given the performance of this one, can I arrange for a full refund from corsair if the store I bought it from won't give me one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted February 8, 2008 Corsair Employee Share Posted February 8, 2008 You are welcome to talk to our customer service, but normally we cant refund you something we did not sell to you. I would try your reseller first. If they will not or cannot help then call our customer service at 888-222-4346 or 510-657-8747 Ext "0" and see what they can do to help you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doogie Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 s.b. I suspect that you may have received a repackaged (refurbished) drive that someone had previously tried to make "bootable"...most computers will not recognise a flash drive as being bootable if the drive is formatted with anything other than FAT16. Another possibility is that the drive partition was corrupted and when you formatted the drive in XP, it saw the drive as being 2GB or less...under those circumstances it will automatically default to FAT16. Try 2 things before you give up on the drive... 1. Create a Windows 98 boot disk, boot into DOS and use FDISK to remove the old partition and create a new active partition using the entire drive capacity. Then boot normally into WindowsXP and use Disk Manager to format the drive for NTFS (See below) 2. See my post under "How do I format my 4GB Drive" for instructions on how to format the drive for NTFS (FAT32 is dog slow on these drives!) Let me know how this works for you? :biggrin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xtreeme Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Good point above. Just like a hard drive, if the partition is set to 4gb its all it will show. Wipe it, recreate it, then format it. SOmeone prob DID try to make that bootable and now you got it. Not corsair, but the vendors issue. Anyways that doesnt matter if we can get it to work! BTW, a program called partition magic would make this easier for you. http://www.soft32.com/download_151.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted February 9, 2008 Corsair Employee Share Posted February 9, 2008 Some times partition magic will not see flash drives just use a DOS disk and we have a FAQ on this as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xtreeme Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 Ah that I didnt know! Just learned something there, sorry for any confusion I might have caused.:o: Then its back to good old Fdisk at the dos prompt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s.b. Posted February 9, 2008 Author Share Posted February 9, 2008 I just created a windows 98 boot disk from a download and booted to DOS and ran FDISK but from there I'm lost, not sure how to proceed. Looked like only two disk were showing up (I have two hard disks). How do you recognise which is the usb drive when creating a new partition? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted February 9, 2008 Corsair Employee Share Posted February 9, 2008 Some MB's dont make it easy to use a Flash drive as a HDD, but you will need to temporarily disconnect the HDD's in your system and set the flash drive as a boot drive to see it as a Boot able HDD and run FDISK. You can only have one active HDD in your system with FDISK. if you dont disconnect the HDD it might not boot back to the O.S. after. This is a limitation of FDISK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doogie Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 s.b. You mentioned that only 2 disks show up in FDISK and that you have 2 disk drives...there may be some confusion here...do you have 2 seperate hard disk drives, or have you partitioned a single hard drive into 2 partitions? FDISK will access only one hrad drive at a time. The number of the drive, not its drive letter will appear at the top of the initial FDISK menu. For example, if you have a single hard disk with 2 partitions, the menu will say that you're viewing information from "Disk 1" however, two partitions will apppear (one set as "active", but both appearing). Note that the total capacity of Disk 1 in this example would be the sum of the 2 partitions that appear. If this describes the way that FDISK ran on your system, change the drive to "Drive 2" and note its size...if it is the same size as your flash drive (and you have no other hard disks or partitions that are that size) then you've accessed your flash drive. Now you can proceed to delete the existing partition and create a new one. The Ram Guy's suggestion to disconnect your existing hard drives is probably more of a safety issue...since you're unfamilar with FDISK, he wanted to insure that you didn't delete the partition on your hard drive. I would suggest that in the future, if you want some assistance, take the time to fill in the specs on your system, so we have a better idea of what we're dealing with :confused: Let us know how things progress... :o: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s.b. Posted February 10, 2008 Author Share Posted February 10, 2008 Doogie, I have two hard disks, the first partitioned into two volumes, realised yesterday when I did the FDISK that I was looking at the two partitions of my primary, did a bit of reading up on FDISK and and now understand how it works regarding disconnecting the hard drives or changing drive order etc. Update on the latest - Plugged it in yesterday afternoon after the initial attampt at FDISK, and attempted again to format, WOW!! it's now got the full 7.7GB. Unfortunately after trying some file transfers it again spat the dummy and showed up as unformatted after the next disconnect/reconnect. Reformat again - now has only 1.92GB capacity, tried again, now 3.65GB. Tried copying some files to it and it now won't read or write, just gone dead. I gave up, put it back in the box and will now talk to the seller about a refund or exchange, if not I'll get it replaced. Thankyou Doogie, Extreeme and Ram Guy for all your help but it looks like this one was a DOA. Sorry about the lack of info regarding my computer specs but I'm very busy at the moment and can't afford to spend anymore time on it, spent too much as it is already. I'm currently half way through a set of construction drawings for some home additions, have to do a concept design for a new office fitout tonight (it's a Sunday here in Australia) and have two days (no where near enough time) when I get to work tommorrow morning to produce two architectural illustrations and a photo montage for a $140 million development. Having a USB drive would have helped, instead I'll just have to go back to burning DVDRWs for the time being. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doogie Posted February 10, 2008 Share Posted February 10, 2008 s.b. Very sorry to hear that things didn't work out for you, but you've got your head in the right place...it's always better to be doing the right things than doing everything right...get on with your work! By the way, the symptoms that the drive displayed could still be the result of your box rather than the drive. A couple of things to be mindful of: 1. If you're using an NTFS file system, don't try to reset the drive to "Optimize for Removal" that can cause "Delayed Write Failures". 2. I don't know if you're using an add-in PCI card to support USB 2.0, but if you are, make certain that the drivers are up to date and properly installed...if they aren't, you may be subject to all sorts of intermittent problems very similar to the ones you've just experienced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted February 11, 2008 Corsair Employee Share Posted February 11, 2008 If you cannot get it working then let's get it replaced, please use the On Line RMA Request Form and we will be happy to replace it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulmat Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 Hi, Why your products "Flash voyager GT", and "Flash survivor GT" do not appear more on your site http://www.corsairmemoru.com ? Thanks, Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employee RAM GUY Posted February 13, 2008 Corsair Employee Share Posted February 13, 2008 They have been discontinued and we will be launching new products to replace them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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