SanDisk flash drive “0 bytes used and 0 bytes free”

[Coloma]

I bought SanDisk 16gb flash drive a week ago and had collected some movies in it. Today I backed up everything from it in my system and have formatted the drive. However, when I was trying to transfer some movies in the flash drive again I got an error message saying "This [drive] is no longer located in Computer. Verify the item's location and try again." in between.
I have tried unplugging it and plugging it back but my system reads it as “0 bytes used and 0 bytes free” any idea what might have gone wrong???

[HamsiniI]

It’s hard to guess like that, anyways I want to know if you have tried formatting your flash drive again?? If not, then format it again and cross check if it’s properties is shown properly or not. In case you get the same response then you can try plugging it in some other system for cross verification.

[DaminiAMD]

Since your flash drive is getting recognized it might be listed in “Disk management”. In that case just go to Control panel > Administrative tool > Computer management > Disk management and check how much unallocated space is shown there. If it says “0 bytes free” then you can try formatting the drive from there.

[Coloma]

I have tried formatting it again but nothing happens when I click on format. I have gone through disk management and it is listed there having “12 GB unallocated space” but I am not able to format it from there as well. Does that mean my flash drive has got corrupted?? I have tried scanning the flash drive with AVG but it hasn’t reported any malware or virus yet. Other flash drives are working fine in my system so there is something wrong with SanDisk one. I am running out of ideas now, so let me know if there is anything else that I can try out further.

[akkiiii]

Try running Chkdsk from command prompt and let me know the result you get, you can follow below steps for running Chkdsk command:

• Go to start > click on run > Type “cmd” without quotes and hit enter
• Once you get command prompt opened type “chkdsk” without quotes and hit enter again

A small scanning process will get carried over the drives connected to your system and the test result will be displayed to you at the end of the process. If you get any error for the flash drive than you can make a note of the same and mention in your next post so that I can have better idea of the issue you are going through.

[Suri Paaji]

You can try using software called Format USB or Flash Drive Software for formatting your SanDisk Flash Drive. It is very light and handy software designed especially for formatting removable drives. Once installed, it will detect all USB devices connected to your system and will display you a list of them. You can simply select the one you want to format and click on format. It has worked for me a couple of times but not ever time. Recently there was something wrong with one of my Kingston flash drive. It was getting recognized in my system but I was asked to format it every time and when I used to click on Format then nothing would happen. Later my friend suggested me “Format USB” software, using it I was able to format my flash drive and was able to access it again.