USB flash drive mounts two volumes

aussie johnaussie john
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I have a USB flash drive which mounts as two separte drives (luckily one is only 1.4M). I tried to reformat with disk utility but can only select one of the drives at a time. The larger volume isnt partitioned.

Also if I lock the drive only the smaller volume mounts



Any ideas how to eliminate the smaller volume?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    costiquecostique Posts: 1,084member
    Sorry for the dumb question, but did you select the drive or a volume in the Disk Utility? The drive icon should look just like a hard drive icon on your desktop, while a volume icon is just below it, indented and has the same name as it appears with when mounted. When you select the drive, the Partition tab shows up. Selecting the drive should let you reformat it and recreate partitions.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    aussie johnaussie john Posts: 173member
    thanks I will rephrase.

    2 drives mount (each with its own volume)

    I would like to delete of one of the drives
  • Reply 3 of 7
    drumsticksdrumsticks Posts: 315member
    What costique said. Within disk utility, select the *DRIVE* (which should currently have two *VOLUMES* indented from it). Then select the Partition tab, and choose the volume scheme with only one partition and hit partition. This should repartition your *DRIVE* to have only one *VOLUME* in it. Careful though as repartitioning deletes everything (in the USB drive).



    Alternatively, you can delete the small partition and leave it unformatted, which means you'll lose 1.4MB. If it is not formatted, the system will not recognize it and will not mount it. This way, you'll have a *VOLUME* that does not occupy the entire *DRIVE*.



    EDIT: More information added.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    aussie johnaussie john Posts: 173member
    Thanks for your reply please check what i have said

    I have two drives NOT one with two volumes
  • Reply 5 of 7
    jwink3101jwink3101 Posts: 739member
    Okay. Select the drive that has two volumes and... Just Kidding!



    What happens on other macs? do you get the same problem? What about on a Windoze computer? What brand is the drive?



    Also, try relaunching finder with the drive still plugged in.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Some USB drives have a secure (encrypted) section on them. That may be what is happening to yours. It probably come with some PC only software and I'm guessing that if the option you want to use exists, it would be there.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    sparhawksparhawk Posts: 134member
    to quote MS ... 'it's not a bug, it's a feature'

    and in this case, yes it's a feature !

    I have the same sort of thumbdrive. Doesn't the partition size ring a bell? 1.4mb? Yes, it's floppydrive size! You can actually make it bootable and boot a system on usb



    Also, there is an encryption program on the bootable part, so you can password protect your drive. If you don't know the password anymore, np, but the whole content will be deleted and the drive is usable again.



    have fun
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