Why is the capacity displayed on a USB flash drive so much smaller than indicated?
“Just now, when I was preparing to use a USB drive, I connected it to my computer and opened File Explorer. However, I found that the USB drive had lost a lot of space, leaving only a few megabytes of available space. What’s going on? When I opened the built-in disk management tool in Windows, I found that the lost space was displayed as unallocated. How should I recover the USB drive space?”
Space loss on USB drives usually occurs when the system is burned to a USB drive, and certain operating systems (such as Chrome OS and Linux) change the partition system of removable devices, resulting in a large amount of unallocated space, resulting in much smaller available space on USB drives. In addition, improper use of certain third-party software or unsuccessful formatting may also result in a lot of unreachable unallocated space on the USB drive. So, how do we restore the true capacity of the USB drive? Please continue reading.
USB drive unallocated space
How to quickly recover USB drive space?
When you encounter a problem of losing USB drive space, don’t panic. Currently, there are many ways to solve this situation. Let’s take two relatively simple methods as examples to demonstrate the detailed operation process of restoring USB drive space.
Method 1: Use disk management tools to restore USB drive space
What should I do if my USB drive has a smaller display capacity? How to recover an unallocated USB drive? The built-in utilities in Windows can help you solve problems quickly! Don’t believe it? You can continue reading.
Before proceeding with the operation, you need to be aware that if you delete content that is important to the system, disk management tools may not be able to delete or format certain system related files, so you may find that unallocated space on the USB drive cannot be used. For this, you can switch to another command-line tool called Diskpart, which can help you recover lost space on USB drives and then use disk management tools to recover USB space.
Note: During command line operations, there is a high possibility of data loss. If the data in your USB drive is important, we recommend that you backup the files in advance.
Step 1. Connect your USB drive to the computer and ensure that the system can detect it. Press Win+R to enter diskpart and press Enter to open the Diskpart command-line utility.
Step 2. Enter the following commands in sequence and press Enter once after each command line to execute.
List disk
Select disk # (# refers to the problematic USB drive letter)
Clean (This command will delete volumes and partitions on the drive)
Create partition primary
Delete volumes and partitions on the drive
Note: If you want to create multiple partitions on a USB drive, please refer to this command to specify the partition size: create partition primary [size=n]. For example, if you want to create a partition with a size of 3000MB, you need to enter this command: create partition primary size=3000.
Step 3. Afterwards, the Diskpart command-line utility will create a primary partition on the USB drive. You can use disk management tools to format it, and then use all the unallocated space generated by the formatting to create a new simple volume, thereby restoring the USB drive space!
This method involves command line and drive deletion, and there is no undo option, so you need to be careful when performing the operation. If you are not very familiar with these, we still recommend using more professional hard disk partitioning tools.
Method 2: Use Aomei Partition Assistant to restore USB drive space (recommended)
Aomei Partition Assistant is a very good disk partition management software with strong compatibility, suitable for Windows and Windows Server operating systems. The user interface is clean and intuitive, and the operation method is simple and easy to learn. It can help users complete various tasks related to disk partitioning, and recover USB drive space is no exception.
Please click the button below to enter the download center and download the Aomei Partition Assistant, then follow our demonstration process to operate together!
Download software now
Win11/10/8.1/8/7/XP
Step 1. Connect your USB drive to the computer and ensure that the system can detect it. Open the Aomei Partition Assistant, right-click on the existing partition available on the USB drive in the main interface, and then select “Adjust/Move Partition”.
Adjusting/moving partitions
Step 2. In the pop-up window, click on the hollow circle on the right side of the existing partition and drag it to the end on the right, then click “OK”.
Merge Unallocated Space
Step 3. Return to the main interface, click the “Submit” button in the upper left corner to preview the upcoming task, confirm it is correct, and then click “Execute” to start restoring USB drive space.
Using Aomei Partition Assistant to Restore USB Drive Space
conclusion
Discovering that your USB drive displays less space than the indicated value is not a happy thing, but you don’t have to worry too much about whether your USB drive is damaged. The correct approach is to first refer to the two methods we provide, and then try to restore the USB drive space. Compared to the complex operations of built-in tools in the system, we recommend using the Aomei Partition Assistant, which can quickly help you solve the problem of USB drive space loss through a few simple steps.
In addition, Aomei Partition Assistant also has many interesting and practical functions, such as creating startup USB drives, converting FAT32 and NTFS file systems, hard disk copying, and C drive expansion. Download and give it a try now!
