How do you format a thumb drive? Are there free software available.?

Question

I think I have an interesting problem with thumb drive.

I have two thumb drives both 1Gig.

One of the drives E:\ was getting a bit populate with work related stuffs so I transferred a big chunk of information to drive F:\ approx 410MB of information.
Everything went OK.
Delete the files from E:\ that is no longer required.
Thing went OK until it came to one file S, which the PC say it cannot be deleted.
Not a real issue, continued to delete remaining files.
On completion looked at some remaining files & directories where nothing has been done.
Then I discover a big problem.
Some directories & files were corrupted and cannot be accessed.
Not an issue as most of them I looked at were not important.

Shut the Thumb drive down, took it out and plug it back.
Access E:\, it now says that the Thumb drive is not formatted "Do you want to format?" which I say no.
Then I got a bigger problem!!
So, I re-boot the computer and when I tried to access E\: on Explorer it still said that the Thumb drive is not formatted "Do you want to format" which I say no again.
I did a chkdsk E:\ in DOS and got the message "cannot read as type of file is RAW".
I subsequently recovered a lot of files using various recovery softwares and kept them in drive C:\drive.
Majority of them cannot be opened or fixed by the recovery softwares which were not a problem as I have backed up.
After having satisfied myself that there is not much that I can do with the corrupted files in the thumb drive I succumbed to the “do you want to format” request.
Everything went well OK and the thumb drive was formatted to FAT32 and I started to use it again.
Thing seems alright for a while until I transfer some backup files into the thumb drive.
On viewing files & directories found that all were corrupted & gooly ****. Tried to erase the file but it would not allowed me to do so.
Stop the thumb drive, unplugged and plug it back. Tried to view it on Explorer and got the dreaded message the “Thumb drive is not formatted Do you want to format?"
Checked properties and found that there are more than 400MB of space left in the drive.
Format it to FAT 12 as I thought that FAT32 is not compatible and it seem to work OK, but then the same problem occur all over again.
I checked drive F:\ and it shows that it is NTFS
I tried to format E:\ in NTFS but the system would not allow it to be done.
I was told that thumb drive cannot be formatted the same way as a conventional floppy or hard disk (A work mate did his and it wouldn’t work any more) and that I need to get the detail of the chip which is not possible as it is sealed except to break it which is something that I want to avoid. With the chip information it is then possible to find the factory software to have it re-formatted.
Unfortunately I have lost the paperwork that came with the drive and have difficulty tracing its source.
Have you come across such a problem and are you able to provide some hint?

Answer 1

You should be able to format your thumbdrive using WinXP.

- Right click on your thumbdrive's icon in Explorer or My Computer
- Choose 'Format'

It is not true that you cannot format your drive the same way you format a floppy or hard disk. They were designed to allow you to format with a minimum of fuss.

Your problem sounds like the partition table in your thumbdrive might have been corrupted. You can try using FDISK if you are using any OS prior to XP. In XP:

- Go to Control Panel
- Click on 'Administrative Tools'
- Click on 'Computer Management'
- Look for your thumbdrive and re-initialise your partition

However, the fact that your thumbdrive became corrupted again after you transferred files back into it shows that there could be a hardware issue as well. Thumbdrives have a finite lifespan which is far less shorter than a hard disk. If you use your thumbdrive to store important data, it might be better for your peace of mind to buy a new one.

Answer 2

You should be able to find the software on the internet. Hopefully you know what brand the thumb drive is.

If you have XP, you shouldn't need software, the plug & play should work with any thumbdrive.

You may (probably do) have a bad thumb drive.

Answer 3

Try this
Right click on my computer
Click on Manage
Select Disk Management

WIndows should format the thumb drive just like any other drive

Answer 4

Most PC should not have problems format the thumbdrive. If your PC is running on Windows XP, then the PC should be able to detect the thumbdrive as it supports most plug & play hardwares, which includes thumbdrive.

Answer 5

I didn't read all of your lengthy question, but I would imagine that the operating system (Windows) would format a USB (thumb) drive just like it would any other drive.