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tom wrote:

I HATE U3, and by extention I HATE SanDisk for creating it!

 

(snipped)

You'd think a company like SanDisk could handle something as simple as a USB flash drive. But NO-O-O-O! They have to IMPROVE it. Yeah, thanks a lot!!!

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What makes this whole U3 thing so infuriating to me is that there is NOTHING on the package or on the drive itself about U3, or even the fact that it contains a ROM partition that can only be removed by certain Windows OS. The packaging says only "Cruzer USB 2.0 Flash Drive". I've gone over the entire package with a magnifying glass. There is no mention of U3 or anything related to it. The only clue that something is amiss is an asterik on the 4GB capacity, with the note "some capacity not available for data storage".

I had a good opinion of SanDisk up to this point -- this experience has destroyed that for good.

I feel better now.

U3 is a virus waiting to happen. After countless crashes and me thinking I had hardware or driver problems, I finally realized that my Sandisk Cruzer was making my computers crash, whether they had XP or Vista. U3 was crashing my computers without even launching! I got a virus through Internet Explorer (which I don't plan to ever use again) inside of Vista, and it somehow attached itself to the U3 and crashed my systems constantly.

  I had no problem uninstalling it, but I didn't identify the problem until I saw this thread. I lost a couple days work over this whole mess and was worried that my cherished desktop's hardware was failing!

Ok? I got the U3 software off my flash drive. How how do I repartition it so I can use the 36mb of unallocated space? Windows computer management isn't allowing me to do this. I bought a 4 gig drive, if I can't use all of it then that is false advertisement and grounds for a law suit! How do I change the partition to allow me to use the entire drive?

Scandisk, I have used your products for years! Who's big idea was this? The software package is neat but not needed nor wanted in most cases. To make is worse, you created a virtual drive and stole the space on the drive from your customer! As it stands I have a 3.75 gig drive and not a 4 gig. Listen to your customers! Fire the moron that wrote this U3 launchpad and then fire the #$%#$%#$ that created a virtual drive and stole the space and locked the partition on the drive! There is no need for the virtual drive and the additional partion! A simple format should rid MY flash drive of your software. It is my drive!

First of all let me tell you what the u3 is:-

U3 is a software on which you can install u3 compatible software's (Like Mozilla fire fox, messenger, Games etc) and take them to a diffrent windows computer and use them without installing them on the computer.

U3 will run only u3 compatible programs. Once u3 launchpad is installed on the FD it will partition the FD in two drives, one would be u3 systems which will display as CD Rom icon and my computer. The files inside that drive can be accessed but you cannot make any changes or transfer any files to that drive ( U3 System drive is reade only). The other one will be the removale disk where you can save all your personal data. More over with the help of u3 you can set password on the drive.

Still if you want to uninstall u3 from the drive its very simple, its just take couple of minutes. Go to this link Uninstall U3 on PC and on MAC Computer click on Uninstall U3 .

I heared that from Aug sandisk drive which will be available in market will not have u3 pre-installed on it.

And I think as you are saying that you are not getting compleat capacity of the drive to use as its marketed. I suggest you to click here and i think you will get the answer to you question.

Whenever you think that you know computers, there is always a manufacturer that challenges that notion.

In this case, Sandisk was the one to offer me with such a (frustrating) experience:

I spent 2.5 hours trying to rid my new 8GB Cruzer Flash Memory stick from the limiting U3 Launchpad.

My desktop PC has XP OS on it.

Using the Uninstall from the provided U3 Launchpad did not work.

Using a downloaded UNinstall executable to that end, did not work either, nor did other ideas I tried.

What saved the day/night for me was to plug it to my office Laptop which has a Vista OS, and uninstalling the U3 there.

Note however to read carefully the very initial messages displayed on the screen when you FIRST plug it in.

It will offer to uninstall the U3 Launchpad, or offer you to select how you want the USB used.

Selecting the 'Use as a Storage device' or similar message is what will actually do the uninstall for you.

What a relief was it to get rid of the U3. I have a Philips DVD Player DVP5982 with a USB input which reads many formats (.avi and others), and having the U3 on the Memory stick prevented the DVD from playing the movies I loaded to the 'Cruzer'.

I never burn any CDs/DVDs anymore. Just download files/photos/movies to a USB Flashdrive, plug into the DVD and watch them all on the large screen HDTV.

Real frakking cute of SanDisk as usual! Launch U3 & click remove results in nice crash of Vista x64 as part of it's payload. Screwed my multi-GB download in Newsbin and god knows what else.

WTF can't this moronic industry just release simple flash memory sticks that are blank & have the RMB bit set so they to be partitioned & formatted the way the user want them? No they got to go & load some crap on & make it complicated because after all that what customers are asking for right?

The signup shield software is a Password management software for your online accounts however if does not manage the password protection for your u3 Flash drive itself, so you can still access the flash drive by entering the right password.

The real problem that you may fall into is that you would not be able to access your online accounts whose password was managed by Sign Up Shield software unless you remember the individual passes