USB flash memory

hey guys, i recently purchased the kingston data traveler 1g usb memory stick. i have a question in regards to removing old files from it. previously i had just been dragging the icons from the kingston window to the trash. well, today i tried to load some files on it and it said i was out of room. come to find there was only 200 mb available (but no file icons). i used my disk utility to erase the memory from the kingston. do i have to do this every time, or is there an easier, more correct, way to clear the memory? thanks.

When you dragged the stuff from the removable drive to the trash, did you empty the trash?

On removable media, the trash is kept in a hidden folder on the device itself. If you remove the device, the items in the trash on the device will apparently disappear from the trash can on your desktop.

If you have multiple users set up, each user will have their own individual hidden trash folder on the device. If one user deletes something from the drive and doesn't empty it, the other user will see that the space is gone but not be able to see the stuff in the trash. The thing to do in that situation is to turn on viewing hidden files and delete the .Trashes folder from the root directory of the drive.

edit: I have that exact USB drive so I know this works

I would try reformattting the whole drive with a fresh file system from disk utility. Maybe your Kngston was preformatted and didn't talk well with OS X.

cazabam said:

When you dragged the stuff from the removable drive to the trash, did you empty the trash?

On removable media, the trash is kept in a hidden folder on the device itself. If you remove the device, the items in the trash on the device will apparently disappear from the trash can on your desktop.

Click to expand...

so what you're saying is....

once i drag the file icons from the kingson window to the trash, i must choose "empty trash" in my finder to permanently remove the files from my kingston?

right. Thats what you have to do.

jediracer said:

once i drag the file icons from the kingson window to the trash, i must choose "empty trash" in my finder to permanently remove the files from my kingston?

Click to expand...

Yep. The trash works the same on all locally connected storage devices.

alrighty then.

thanks guys!!!

Sorry to bring this up again..

but if that doesn't work (which I know sometimes it doesn't) use this little trick I've learned:

Open Terminal
Use the command: rm -rf //Volumes/yourusbdrivename/.Trashes
and this command: rm -rf //Volumes/yourusbdrivename/.Trash-yourusbdrivename

where "yourusbdrivename" is the name of your drive (should be shown on the USB drive's icon on the desktop)

Works for me everytime. Its kind of annoying, but it works