how can i disable usb drive's write cache?

[Guest]

i want to defrag my usb drive (Sandisk Titanium U3 1GB) with Perfect
Disk 8 Workstation... But it says "You just simply disable write cache"
and "windows should see you drive as fixed disk"; my drive is "fixed
drive" i repartioned it with "fdisk" under "dos" and coppied system
files so i can boot the computer from the usb drive... but windows sees
the disk as "remoable drive"... how can i solve this?

 

[Ted Zieglar]

U3 drives are seen by the OS as CD drives. This is coded in the firmware
and cannot be changed, unless you delete U3 entirely. CD emulation is
needed to autorun the Launchpad, since Windows won't accept autorun
commands from a USB drive.

Note that a U3 flash drive uses two drive letters. One is created by the
firmware to represent a removable drive. You want to defragment the
other drive letter, which represents the user-accessible portion of the
drive. I can defragment that drive letter from Windows' own disk
defragmenter. If Perfect Disk can't do this, then you may have a
question for Perfect Disk technical support.

Something to keep in mind: Flash memory is not as robust as a hard disk.
Over time, multiple writes will wear out the cells and cause errors.
Most people will replace their USB drive long before this becomes a
problem, but regular defragmenting will definitely accelerate the wear
of the drive.

 

[Uwe Sieber]

i want to defrag my usb drive (Sandisk Titanium U3 1GB) with Perfect
Disk 8 Workstation... But it says "You just simply disable write cache"
and "windows should see you drive as fixed disk"; my drive is "fixed
drive"

I've never seen U3 drives that are fixed.

i repartioned it with "fdisk" under "dos" and coppied system
files so i can boot the computer from the usb drive...

DOS doesn't care about fixed or removable. If you create
more than one partition unter DOS or linux, XP will use
the first one only.


I don't think that defragmentation of a flash drive makes any
sense but if it makes you happy just copy all data to a
harddrive, format the flash drive and copy all back.


Uwe