This is driving me crazy! I am copying a pant load of files from one computer to another using thumbdrives. (I know there are better ways) The issue is I can only fill the removables about 2/3 of the way before they will not take anymore. What's up?
by 
ChandaDiane - est. 1975
ANSWERS: 3
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There are two possible answers here (at least that I can see). 1. Your thumb drives may have operating software on them in hidden files. Some drives have a mini-OS that allow you to use it a "ready-boost" in a Vista machine and/or have software to allow you to encrypt your data. To get rid of these just re-format your drive. 2. Misreporting of drive sizes because of the need to try and sell, sell, sell. For some time now, drive manufacturers have been using differing criteria to advertise their drives. In the computer biz a kilo is understood to mean 1024 units and mega is 1024 kilos. This is because of the nature of binary counting (which is how a computer counts). In the "real" world a kilo is 1000 and mega is a 1000 kilos. Therefore when a drive manufacturer says his thumbdrive is 8 gb the computer will report that it is 7.41 gb even when totally empty. If it isn't either of these then I'm all out of tricks. Hope this helps.
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Barsoom offers two reasonable explanations, but there still might be one or two more. For example, the thumb might be partitioned to contain a password protected area, and that could be occupying as much as the entire thumb. It would not be unusual for a third of the thumb to be occupied in this manner. Another reason might be segmentation of the memory which allocates space in indivisible chunks, leaving some free space at the end of every allocation or file. This will reduce the amount of usable space a little at a time, but it adds up. Don't forget to reformat your thumb occasionally because you can't rely on simply deleting files to clean things up.
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Thumb drives are basically mini hard drives without the option to partition. Thumb drives, especially if it is a smart card will be partititoned for password protected area.
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