Removal of U3 crap from USB-Flash- how?

Brains · 01-02-2010, 03:41 PM

Quote:

That does not work on Sandisk Cruzer Micro 16 Gb (and I presume, won't work on other U3 devices).

It does.

I noticed you mentioned in your post how it gets mounted automatically, unmount the partitions/drive first and make sure to wipe the entire device, not just a partition or two.

Moss · 05-13-2010, 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by worm5252

I have a sandisk 8GB with the U3. All the U3 stuff resides on its own partition. Just use gparted and delete the partition from it.

My gparted does not see the drive. I see "/dev/sda" (hdd) and "/dev/sdc" (thumb), so I assume the U3 dung is "sdb".

thorkelljarl · 05-13-2010, 04:16 PM

U3 again...

I had a SanDisk 2GB USB flash stick that I formatted with GParted to ext2 and used, but it did not mount reliably. I took it to a Windows machine, formatted it to fat32, then downloaded and ran the recommended U3 removal program. Thereafter the problem with mounting disappeared.

I assume that U3 may well have a permanence that resists an ordinary formatting process. I also assume that there is a good deal of difference in how well a regular formatting will remove U3 depending on the particular make, model, size, etc. of the flash drive. That is, results may vary, but I concluded that best practice would be to use the removal program.

Even better, I learned, and the next time looked around and bought a USB flash without the damned U3.

jefro · 05-14-2010, 04:06 PM

Simple.

U3 site had info.

http://u3.com/support/default.aspx#CQ3

http://u3uninstall.s3.amazonaws.com/U3Uninstall.exe

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/u3-unin...drive/#more-21

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/category/tools/

brucehinrichs · 05-14-2010, 05:04 PM

You cannot remove the U3 crap with any linux tools that I have found or tried. I installed a copy of windoze XP in VirtualBox, downloaded the windoze-only removal software from within virtual windoze, and used the software to remove. BTW, I have used my SanDisk Cruzer drives (all three of them) in windoze XP since and it did not reinstall the U3 crap.

aggravatedgestalt · 02-02-2011, 10:39 PM

Seems to work quite well:
http://georgia.ubuntuforums.org/show...=803809&page=2

I could not resist but to comment on the quote above ("set a man on fire"). I convulsed with laughter.

ubume2 · 05-16-2011, 01:09 PM

I found a solution for my situation. I have Ubuntu Natty. When I loaded a U3 type flash drive the desktop would freeze up, etc.

From synaptic I downloaded "u3-tool".

Couldn't find much documentation for it, until I found this code that worked for me:

Code:

sudo u3-tool -p 0 /dev/sdb1

,or

Code:

sudo u3-tool -p 0 /dev/[your device name]

That removed the "u3 crap" but maintained the files in it. It's easy to remove the remainder manually

Edit: May 23,2011 I Must be a thread killer