Comments on: Removing U3 (and associated bundled software) from the SanDisk Cruzer Micro USB flash drive

By: Krista

Krista — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:41:24 +0000

After 250+ comments and nearly 2 years, I’m still getting the occasional dorkass that sees the need to flash his unimpressive tackle in the comments for this post; I only left the comments open because occasionally someone added something useful (it doesn’t matter to me anymore anyhow, and was never that important to me personally except as an irritant).

I think, though, that this may have outlived its usefulness. Trolls can head back on over to Slashdot The comments are now closed.

By: Huhwhat

Huhwhat — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:32:02 +0000

Ed note: As usual, if the comments are abusive, they get edited, generally cut down to whatever useful information they may contain.

Also, do note that this post was written in late 2006, when there was not in fact removal software built into the drive and the SanDisk + U3 was in fact one of the cheapest thumb drives available. Use your damned brain before you flame.

What follows is the only useful information from the post, IMHO, and MHO is the only one that counts on my own damned blog. Pick someplace else to be an asshole, dude…

And to Armand, Start > Run > CMD > type “Convert DriveLetter: /FS:NTFS /X” If you Upgrade to a newer version of U3 it doesnt format the drive back to Fat32 it just writes to the CD partition so it stays NTFS or in my case EXT2

By: Slav

Slav — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:54:47 +0000

Thanks a lot for this quick info. I can’t believe SanDisk would force a program on you and not even include the removal software on the stick itself. A$$clowns.

Thanks again.

By: Rob L

Rob L — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:22:05 +0000

God Bless Google!!!
Thank you for listing how to remove that annoying software! Boy was it driving me crazy mounting the U3 partition every frickin time I put it in my computer.

By: Amber

Amber — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:48:29 +0000

Thanks for this. I hated that freaking program.

^_^

By: Egon

Egon — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:54:59 +0000

Thanks for the info. The SanDisk website is a joke: It asks why I want to erase U3; I tell it because I use Mac OS X; and it downloads a PC .exe file. BRILLIANT!

By: Hazel

Hazel — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:09:22 +0000

Brilliant! thank you very much

By: Hermanntrude

Hermanntrude — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:57:49 +0000

thanks dude. Big help. I hate that BS software bundling stuff. My workplace gave me this drive for free, but i hated using it because of that dumb U3 stuff. I’ll be letting the others know how to get rid of it too, i expect they’ll be pleased.

By: Armand Welsh

Armand Welsh — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:36:58 +0000

BTW: If you run XP or Vista, you might already know that formatting the flash drive for NTFS will improve the drive’s performance, (and reliability in vista).

when U3 is installed, you cannot format the drive as anything except FAT32.

By: Armand Welsh

Armand Welsh — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:34:37 +0000

I just picked up four 4Gig Cruzer Micro USB flash drives for work. We do not allow any unauthorized software, so I brought the drive home to work on removing the s/w.

It turns out that the drive comes packaged with the removal tool already. When you open the emulated CD-ROM drive, you will see a zip file on the folder. Open the ZIP file, and the LaunchPadRemoval file in there is the uninstaller. Simply double click the removal tool, and follow the prompts.

At least they were kind enough to package the removal tool on the drive. Too bad they don’t make it easier to remove though. A link in the U3 LaunchPad “Settings” menu, even if burried, would have been nice.

Thank you for the blog, it is sure to help many, many, many people.