I have a SanDisk Cruzer Micro USB Flash Drive 2GB.
Btw, mine doesn’t look as good as this one anymore – I carry it in my pocket with my keys everywhere I go!
Earlier this week I went to copy a large file to it and it told me it was out of space.
After deleting pretty much everything from the drive I still did not have all of my space back!
Highlighting the files on the drive, I right-clicked and chose “Properties” and was shown a little over 6mb in file – the correct amount. However…
When I highlighted the drive under “My Computer” and right-clicked and chose “Properties” the drive was still reporting an excessive amount of space used! 678mb! WTF?
I searched the ‘net for an answer and many folks with similar problems advocated formatting the drive. Umm… Drastic.
The NON-DRASTIC fix follows!
Go to your “My Computer” and under the “Tools” menu choose “Folder Options”. Under the “View” tab uncheck the box for “Hide protected operating system files”. Don’t forget to reselect this when you’re all done.
Now when you look at the files on your flash drive, you will see a “Recycled” trash-bin icon.
Right-click on the trash-bin icon and choose “Delete”.
Yes. Yes, you do want to delete this pesky little critter.
Don’t worry, it’s not going to hurt anything. I did this on mine and all is well.
Checking the space on the flash drive again, all of my drive space was back!
Far as I can tell… not disconnecting your flash drive correctly before removing it could cause this. Or using it between a PC and a MAC was a theory on the ‘net. Or just gremlins. You fed them after midnight didn’t you? 
so far, worked like a charm..thank you! : )
also, I frequently use my memory stick to transfer files between my Mac and PC…so your guess may be correct.
Hello Scott,
The recycled trash bin icon didn’t appear after I unchecked “Hide protected operating system files.” Help, please. >_<
I also use mine to transfer files between my Mac and PC like Hillary so that may be the reason.
I have that exact flash drive! Except I was wondering if you could explain this process for a Mac user?
if the above fix didnt work try this one out.
this should fix ur problem 99% of the time
Go: My computer -> Right Click you drive -> Click on “Format” -> Click on “restore device defaults” -> finally click on “start” should take bout a second when finished you should have all of you space
@Julie Copy all your files to your desktop, Go to Apps, then Utilities. Open Disk utilities, find your drive then select erase. Erase it and then copy your files back. I had this problem too, though this is a different method.
Thankyou Ridge, your suggestion worked! I’m a mac only person and really didn’t want to have to boot up my old PC everytime I need to recover usb memory!
I’ve been having this problem with a number of my USB drives, while this solution helps, does anyone know why it occurs and / or more importantly how to stop it happening? It’s a major pain!
Wow, thank you so much for this! *-*
One thing to mention: I have a 4GB Cruzer, and my folder was called “.Trashes” instead of “Recycled.”
ive bought a dvd/lcd syetem for my honda civic (Rockmars SL-947) RMHC-809 and i connected a 16GB kingston drive with 3000 MP3 files in it. The problem is, the car audio system only reads 1600 MP3. Please guide. File system of the usb flash drive is FAT32.