vfat usb memory stick drive doesn't free up space after delete

[Ryan O'Connor]

I have a standard 256mb memory stick - "my flash". The memory stick has been formatted for FAT with Windows XP. If I add files on it with linux or windows, the space remaining is updated in both operating systems (to tend towards 0mb).

That's all fine, until I delete some files to free space up on the drive. The files dissapear instantly as they should, except the space is still reported as the same before and after I delete the files. Trying to copy a new file on which should now fit still gives the error that the disk does not have enough space. This happens on both windows and linux, but windows deletes the files properly. It happens in Ubuntu 6.06 even after unmounting the drive and allowing any cached operations to flush to the disk. The only way I can overcome this currently is to use windows to delete files or format the flash memory. Is there another solution? This definitely seems like a bug to me. I've verified it on 2 computers: one running breezy; the other dapper.

Can other people verify this? There must be thousands out there with common memory sticks. What do you do in linux when they fill up? I need mine to be compatible with windows, linux, and mac, so it is important to keep it's file system in a consistent state. Ubuntu just chews it up slowly...

[didier (did447-deactivatedaccount)]

Duplicate of 12893, you have to empty to trash.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks for the bug report. This particular bug has already been reported into our bug tracking system, but please feel free to report any further bugs you find.