Storage: Anyone Have Experience With U3 Flash Drives? I Hate Them!!!

Anyone Have Experience With U3 Flash Drives? I Hate Them!!!

I'm hoping that I'll be able to get some help and some insight to this problem that I'm having. Actually, let me rephrase that. To this major and highly annoying a potentially devastating problem that I'm having.

I just recently (today) bought a SanDisk Cruzer Micro 2GB flash drive with retractable port, with U3 technology.

I plugged it into my SONY Vaio laptop (model number VGN-FJ170), running Windows XP, Service Pack 2, expecting to see what happened when I popped in my best friend's Memorex 2GB flash drive. I expected it to show the little "Found New Hardware" icon in the system tray, and then after a few seconds, to have it tell me that it was reading the disc, then pop the disc window open, showing the contents of the device, or to have it pop open a window asking me what I wanted to do with the device ("Open Window to Show Files", or "Do Nothing").

It didn't do that. And also, it took an awful long time for the "Installing New Hardware" icon in the system tray
Well, I opened up my My Computer window. It took about 2 minutes to load, and showed the device. Now, I am never a big fan of what companies think I need to have preinstalled on my flash disc, not to mention that they're usually in FAT format. I always format them to FAT32, thus thereby making it FAT32 AND removing all preinstalled software.
to disappear.

Well, it wouldn't let me access it from Windows Explorer (my computer). Actually, let me rephrase that. Windows Explorer was blank on parts of it (like you see when you're running too many applications, and you open My Computer, and it takes a long time to load, or when you switch windows).

Luckily I had a shortcut on my desktop to the drive letter that it was assigned (F:\), so I double-clicked that to view what was inside the flash drive. There was a disc labeled "U3", a folder labeled "Documents" and some other folder that I forget. The U3 disc and the other documents, I believe were hidden also.

Well, on My Computer, it finally showed the drive, so I clicked on it to select it, and then My Computer took a long time again. It seemed to be taking a LOOOOOOONNNG time to access the drive, so I gave up and killed the Windows Explorer process from the task manager again, and then restarted Windows Explorer via the task manager (explorer.exe).

Again I tried to access the drive. And again it was lagging horribly. I finally was able to figure out the right-click the shortcut icon on my desktop and select format. I formatted it twice. I then checked the drive. It was empty.

Yet My Computer still lagged when I tried to access the drive. And now, I found another nuissance (sp?). I noticed it had installed a new CD drive on my computer. What the heck???

I located the drive in the device manager and under the CD ROM & DVD ROM drives, it said that it was a SanDisc U3 Cruzer Micro Disc, or something to that effect. I know that it knew it was a SanDisc Disc, and that it was a Cruzer Micro, and that it was U3, but I don't remember the exact labeling.

I got so frustrated, I restarted my computer a few times. And I still experienced lag with My Computer. I'm only having lag with "My Computer", mind you, not Windows Explorer itself. As long as I stay away from "My Computer" and only use drive letters and direct paths typed into the path directory, Windows Explorer acts zippy. But when I get onto "My Computer", it lags horribly. I tried opening this new CD drive that it had installed, and when I did, I received a message stating that it was in a format that Windows did not recognize, and that the disc could be corrupted. Well, I Quick Formatted it again and formatted it a few more times.

Then, via the shortcut, I loaded some pictures, music and other stuff onto the drive. I accessed them via the shortcut, and everything worked fine. Pictures looked perfect, music played great, via WinAMP and I was able to save text documents to it just fine (that I had copied into the drive and opened via the shortcut).

I decided to plug in my best friend's Memorex drive into my computer to test it out (if it was my USB ports, or my Plug and Play stuff). Well, "My Computer" lagged again. I got so ticked off that I pulled out the SanDisc flash drive. OH MY GOSH. "My Computer" instantly and magically refreshed itself, showing that my best friend's Memorex was installed and everything was speedy, as it should be (also, that extra CD drive disappeared).

Then I replugged in the SanDisc. Lag AGAIN!!!

I replaced my SanDisc with a brand new one, thinking it could have been the memory (which was dumb to think, because all my data I had put onto it worked flawlessly.

I went the the same hell with formatting this drive and taking care of everything. And it's still causing my "My Computer" to lag and still showing up with that dumb extra CD drive. What the heck?

If this is what U3 does to computers, I will never ever buy another U3 enabled flash disc drive, and to be honest, this has soured my view towards SanDisc, because I called them to get support, but it was after hours, and their QuickStart guide mentions none of this, and in fact is only for people using something other than Windows XP.

It mentions nothing about that stupid little CD drive that shows up, and I hate it.

I have also tried plugging the flash drive itself into other computers, and get the same results (laggy "My Computer") and tried plugging new flash drives into my computer (borrowed from students around my school's library) and their's all install fine and doesn't affect the speed of "My Computer".

This flash drive is supposed to be taken to school and back and forth between computers. I cannot be sitting in front of a computer screen, waiting for "My Computer" to catch up because of that stupid flash drive. That's not an option. I need to be able to pop in my flash drive, have the computer I'm using detect the new hardware, load it, access my data, and then be on my way. This is not an option.

Has anyone else had experience with U3 flash drive, particularly this model? I am at wit's end, and am so ticked, that honestly I think I'd get more enjoyment from smashing the flash drive and burning it than exchanging it for a new one. Can someone help me please???