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From: AES on 4 Jul 2008 11:07
In article <1ijifau.1wdunv0s0e40yN%paulfuchs(a)porkain'tkosher.oink>,
paulfuchs(a)porkain'tkosher.oink (Paul Fuchs) wrote:

> AES <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> > Is there a straightforward way to reformat a SanDick Cruzer 2 GB or 4GB
> > USB thumb drive to make it into a totally vanilla external USB volume
> > that can be read and written to on either Macs or PCs?
> >
> > That is, totally eliminate all the "U3" or whatever
> > system stuff it is that shows up on a Mac or PC, including a separate CD
> > volume that has to be ejected separately
>
> Not trying to be rude, but there was a thread a few months ago covering
> this in detail.

These gadgets seem to be on display racks everywhere these days, at very
attractively low discount prices per GB compared to other thumb drives.
(Is this maybe because the additional "U3" stuff has turned out to be
unpopular even with PC users?)

I guess I'm still hoping that since this gadget presumably contains only
a purely passive memory card, there must be some brute force way even on
a Mac to use Disk Utility or ??? to totally erase the entire unit down
to bare or empty memory and reformat that memory . . . or is the "U3"
stuff in some kind of separate chip that can't be erased?
From: Jolly Roger on 4 Jul 2008 11:12
In article <siegman-DB2A83.08071904072008(a)news.stanford.edu>,
AES <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote:

> In article <1ijifau.1wdunv0s0e40yN%paulfuchs(a)porkain'tkosher.oink>,
> paulfuchs(a)porkain'tkosher.oink (Paul Fuchs) wrote:
>
> > AES <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > Is there a straightforward way to reformat a SanDick Cruzer 2 GB or 4GB
> > > USB thumb drive to make it into a totally vanilla external USB volume
> > > that can be read and written to on either Macs or PCs?
> > >
> > > That is, totally eliminate all the "U3" or whatever
> > > system stuff it is that shows up on a Mac or PC, including a separate CD
> > > volume that has to be ejected separately
> >
> > Not trying to be rude, but there was a thread a few months ago covering
> > this in detail.
>
> These gadgets seem to be on display racks everywhere these days, at very
> attractively low discount prices per GB compared to other thumb drives.
> (Is this maybe because the additional "U3" stuff has turned out to be
> unpopular even with PC users?)
>
> I guess I'm still hoping that since this gadget presumably contains only
> a purely passive memory card, there must be some brute force way even on
> a Mac to use Disk Utility or ??? to totally erase the entire unit down
> to bare or empty memory and reformat that memory . . . or is the "U3"
> stuff in some kind of separate chip that can't be erased?

Could it be it uses some custom hardware configuration that strays
enough from the standard USB specifications (in order to save money on
production costs) that it requires custom drivers to work rather than
relying on standard USB drivers in most computers?

--
Please send all responses to the relevant news group rather than directly
to me, as E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry
SPAM filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google Groups.
You'll need to use a real news reader if you want me to see your posts.

JR
From: Fred Moore on 4 Jul 2008 12:45
In article <jollyroger-6E3AB1.10121004072008(a)individual.net>,
Jolly Roger <jollyroger(a)pobox.com> wrote:
> In article <siegman-DB2A83.08071904072008(a)news.stanford.edu>,
> AES <siegman(a)stanford.edu> wrote:
> > I guess I'm still hoping that since this gadget presumably contains only
> > a purely passive memory card, there must be some brute force way even on
> > a Mac to use Disk Utility or ??? to totally erase the entire unit down
> > to bare or empty memory and reformat that memory . . . or is the "U3"
> > stuff in some kind of separate chip that can't be erased?

So far as I know, and I have done some research as well as personal
experimentation with these U3 devices, there is no way to clear them via
the Mac OS. You have to take them to a D'Ohs machine and run the
mentioned uninstaller.

Microcenter is selling these at very attractive prices: 1,2,4,8,16GB for
$7,9,14,25,50 respectively, with a nominal lifetime guarantee. Last I
looked U3 was installed on the 4GB and up. Wherever you buy these they
surely will have a D'Ohs machine onsite and _should_ have the
uninstaller available. Before you buy them ask if they will clear the U3
stuff. If not, buy from someone else.

> Could it be it uses some custom hardware configuration that strays
> enough from the standard USB specifications (in order to save money on
> production costs) that it requires custom drivers to work rather than
> relying on standard USB drivers in most computers?

As far as I can tell, these drive use the standard USB driver, unless
they load something special into RAM when they mount. You can delete
some of the U3 info, but not the core read-only partition which contains
the encoding executables. I have to say I'm impressed that SanDisk has
made that partition so resistant to alteration, though it's yet another
unnecessary D'Ohs PITA for Mac users.

--Fred
From: Wes Groleau on 4 Jul 2008 14:42
Jolly Roger wrote:
> Could it be it uses some custom hardware configuration that strays
> enough from the standard USB specifications (in order to save money on
> production costs) that it requires custom drivers to work rather than
> relying on standard USB drivers in most computers?

Probably not. Since Mac OS 10.3 and Windows 200/XP mount them without
installing anything.

--
Wes Groleau
Genealogical Lookups:
http://groleau.freeshell.org/ref/lookups.shtml
From: Jolly Roger on 4 Jul 2008 16:00
In article <Eaubk.546$HY.81(a)trnddc01>,
Wes Groleau <groleau+news(a)freeshell.org> wrote:

> Jolly Roger wrote:
> > Could it be it uses some custom hardware configuration that strays
> > enough from the standard USB specifications (in order to save money on
> > production costs) that it requires custom drivers to work rather than
> > relying on standard USB drivers in most computers?
>
> Probably not. Since Mac OS 10.3 and Windows 200/XP mount them without
> installing anything.

Right, but they can't *format* it.

--
Please send all responses to the relevant news group rather than directly
to me, as E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry
SPAM filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google Groups.
You'll need to use a real news reader if you want me to see your posts.

JR
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