[RESOLVED] Format USB memory

[Rex A. Butcher]

What ho one and all,

Have bought a 64 gb USB memory stick. Apart from having trouble formatting it, which I have now done, it seems to have two 'partitions'. The main one, healthy, virtually all the capacity and a 33mb, 'unallocated' section.

I know that 33mb is small in the greater scheme of things, but no other USB stick I have, has an unallocated section on it. I cannot seem to do anything with it. Disk Management does not offer any options; I have tried DOS but I guess DOS will not read USB as it is not found; my partition tools do not find it.

What can I do? I would like to format then combine so that the stick is just one 64gb whole.

Toodle pip and thanks

Rex

[Train]

Gparted will take care of it.
GParted Live on CD is my go to tool.
Salvaged a few sticks by ripping out garbage partitions.
Just make darn sure you have the right device
http://gparted.org/livecd.php

[Midknyte]

What is the make/model of the flash drive?

You can try Minitool in Windows.
http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-...n-manager.html

Parted Magic is also included on UBCD5.

[Rex A. Butcher]

Thanks. I have GParted somewhere and have just downloaded MiniTool. Will give one or the other a try on the morrow.

I was looking at DiskPart but it does not see the USB, only the three internal HDD.

[Rex A. Butcher]

I have tried GParted and MiniTool and the result is the same, nothing. I can delete, create, format, wipe, rename this small partition but merging is a no-go. GParted does not seem to have a merge option (or not that I can see) and MiniTool starts then tells me that there is not enough free space!

Partition.jpg

I know this is trivial but I would like to have the entire stick as a whole with my own created partitions rather than having one small bit that I have no control over.

With MiniTool, I opened the 'Explore' option and have put that at the bottom of the partition window. It is a System File, but why and why can I not get rid of it?

Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks

[Midknyte]

Your picture shows the M: drive as 8MB and the rest as a rex1 partition. Why did you set it up like that? Normally, you would assign a drive letter. Did you try to set it as a volume mount point folder? I wouldn't do that for a flash drive.

Did you disable System Restore for the M: drive? I see mountpointmanagerremote in M:. That probably happened because you used NTFS.

Did you delete all the partitions first? If you just delete the M:, you would first need to move the rex1 partition to the beginning of the drive, and then extend it.

You still didn't give the make/model of the drive.

[Train]

The last thing made has to be the first thing removed.

Unless you use something like DBAN on the drive.

[Rex A. Butcher]

It is a 64gb Verbitum usb stick. I have tried so many things that I am getting lost as to what I have tried. Giving the bigger partition is not a problem, have done that now (T) and turned of SysRestore for everything.

I have deleted both partitions and reformatted them both. Should they not be NTFS? However, when I formatted as FAT32 and tried to merge, I received a message that merge could only occur with NTFS. I have not tried moving the 8mb to the end of the drive. Unfortunately the 8mb section will only format as FAT12, the larger can go to FAT32. Or should I try EXT2 (whatever that is?)

Would Linux Swap be better? For what it is worth, I'm running XP Pro.

Partition2.jpg

This is the message I receive every time following an NTFS merge. It does not matter if I am merging M with T or T with M, either way, 'reserve more space....' How much more space do I need on an empty 61 gb stick?

What is DBAN? I know it is something Linux but I know zilch about Linux

[Rex A. Butcher]

Update.

Don't know what I have done but used an HP USB Disk Format tool and now have a 60.1gb stick with what appears to be a single partition. This is showing in both MiniTool and Explorer/Properties. However, Properties says 69,541 / 66.3 mb used and 64,472,375,296 / 60.1 free with a 64gb / 60.1gb capacity.

Not that is is vitally important but where has 4 gb gone?

[HAN]

There seem to be various explanations around the web for rated drive capacities and actual available space. One article that seemed pretty good http://www.howtogeek.com/123268/wind...rong-capacity/

Here's a photo of the 64 GB UFD I carry around.64G_Drive.png

[Rex A. Butcher]

Thanks. Would appear that the lose of 4 gb is nothing to be concerned with.

Thanks for all the advice; it's much appreciated.

[Midknyte]

The HP tool would have wiped out all partitions and then created a single partition, which is what I said to do.

NTFS gets you over the 4GB file size limit, and it is compatible with Windows devices. However, you should always eject the drive (safely remove) before removing it from the USB port. exFAT is another option.

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/de...9ZY2RxbA%3D%3D

[Rex A. Butcher]

Yeah, I know you advised to create a single partition and that is what I was trying to achieve with MiniTool or EaseUS, but unable to do so. I could not merge the two. But now it is done; thanks.