Bought a U3 jump drive

And i need some help...it is a sandisk cruzer micro 1 gb
i wanted it for the 1gb...not the U3
is there a way to disable U3 so it doesnt use it when i plug it in

 

Learned two new things today, heh.

1. Disable U3 on inserting flash drive: Hold down the shift key. The drive will act like a normal flash drive, the U3 interface will not load. If you so desire to use the U3 interface/programs after that, you'd have to manually double-click the "Launch U3" icon on the drive.

2. Remove U3 altogether: I guess enough people made a stink about it, so there is an U3 uninstall available on the official U3 website. I haven't tried it personally, but if I understand correctly it will permanently remove the U3 system (and software? dunno) from the drive. So I guess you'd want to make sure you want it totally gone before you use it.

I vaguely remember seeing something about changing some settings to disable upon loading as well, but I can't seem to find the details at the moment. I guess for the time being, the Shift Key thing will do fine.

 

Format it. I got a U3 drive free as a trial for my job... format was at the top of my list to do to that thing.

 

I tried the format approach too and thought that took care of the u3 software auto pop up but it just reloaded. There's is also not an uninstall. Real pain! Run a search and you will see all the pissed people that are in the same boat. I've attached a link below if you want to uninstall the u3 software and make it like a regular flash drive. I was really ticked because I dl the Firefox u3 version so I could use FF on other people's machine if they didn't have it. When I tried it out on my machine that already has FF installed the u3 version took over the profile that I had on the laptop. Even with the flash drive out. I tried running the FF profile app and it wouldn't even show my old profile! It was on my machine but that u3 really screwed everything. So back to the uninstall link if you want it, http://www.u3.com/uninstall/

 

That makes NO sense, that the U3 software would exist after a format, unless its a hidden protected partition or something. I think I'd still go the format approach, do it from a Linux LiveCD if you need to.

 

i did it....all i wanted was a jump drive.....all that u3 stuff was really annoying....

plus i have a 12" ws laptop...it is small enough to take with me...and for my multiple computers....uummm...i got the averatec 2150 and an apple powerbook

so ya...both have the same favorites and such....oh well....

thanks guys for the help

 

Yep, you pretty much nailed it. Do a quick google search and you'll see what was happening. The software when installed was protecting itself in a partition and then it would just reinstall if you had formated the drive. Looks like enough people were just bringing the flash drives back and returning them that Best Buy it looks like was going to stop carrying them. U3 then quickly put out an uninstaller on their website for the problem.

 

Well there was no point in not posting the uninstaller on their site. The uninstaller was leaked previously thru bestbuy. Bestbuy was using it to uninstall U3 from drives that customers were returning because they didn't like U3. And in a few days it was all over the place, in typical internet spirit

 

Ya that was how I had found out about it but the links were all dead to the leaked dl. The next one I found was to the U3 site. Oh well, glad it worked.

 

Yeah I used the uninstall from the U3 site and it worked

 

If you have a SanDisk flash drive and don't want U3. I recommend trying this tool: http://sandisk.com/Retail/Default.aspx?CatID=1415. This will remove it everytime. Make sure no other flash drives or external HDDs are connected when you run the U3 removal tool. This tool has been known to work on other brands. But use at your own risk if you try that.

 

Also Sandisk has a tool on their website that will install U3 again if you ever need it again...

 

If you ever want something like U3 back (or a better version), try portableapps - its very similar (but a bit better IMO). I personally dont use it, but it does work well (I tried it for a few days).

 

I just bought a SanDisk Cruzer yesterday and when running U3, there's an option in the Settings menu to have U3 removed. Must be something they added to their U3 program that wasn't there before -- so no need to download anything anymore. I went ahead and did so, got my full 2GB back and installed PortableApps. Good times.