Flash drives do not spontaneously lose their formatting, unless they have been damaged, which is rare. Your problem may be the port, not the drive.
If you have it plugged into a USB port on the front of the case, try a USB port directly connected to the mboard. In some cases the wiring between the mboard USB header and the front ports will not work properly with some USB devices. (I have such a case with such wiring - it works for a mouse but not a flash drive)
If the drive is plugged into a hub, that is, two or more ports that are connected to one directly connected USB port, not all USB devices work properly with such a hub - try a directly connected USB port. (Multiple USB ports higher up on a case front connect to a USB header on the mboard and are usually that kind of hub)
Did you try direcly connected USB ports as I suggested in response 2 on the other computer? e.g. as I said, flash drives do not work properly in the front lower USB ports on one of my computer cases.
You don't necessarily format a flash drive using FAT32 or NTFS partitioning - smaller capacity drives often use FAT rather than those. If you told us the model we could tell you which you should use. E.g. 2gb capacity or less can use FAT or FAT32.
XP sees empty drives, or drives partitioned in a way it doesn't recognize (e.g. Linux partitions or hidden partitions) as having raw partitioning. You can choose which type of formatting/partitioning you want to use in Disk Management in XP, and then format the drive, but you should use the type it was intended to use. Control Panel - Classic view - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management RIGHT click on the flash drive - make sure you have chosen the right one - it may not have a drive letter - choose Format - File system - look at the choices - depending on the capacity of the flash drive, you may have the option of using FAT, FAT32, or NTFS formatting/partitioning. Most flash drives DO NOT use NTFS, the default! 2.1gb capacity or less drives can use FAT or FAT32.
Since it's 2gb you can use FAT or FAT32. FAT32 wastes less space if you have a lot of small files on the drive, but there's little difference for large files. See the directions in response 5.
Most flash drives of that capacity do not use NTFS, and most flash drives larger than that use FAT32, not NTFS.
It's generally recommended you NOT use NTFS on any drive smaller than 4gb, hard drive or USB drive or whatever, because it's formatting and partition table and other stuff take up a lot more space than similar for FAT and FAT32 do. If you were to use it you might not have the full 2gb of capacity left to store data.
Also, FAT32 uses up more drive space than FAT does. If you use FAT32 it's possible you won't have the full 2gb capacity left for data - in that case, it's pretty certain the drive is supposed to use FAT.
I found the Taiwan web site for the distributor of the Transcend drives but I see no info about the formatting/partitioning a 2gb drive uses. http://www.gish.com.tw/product/e02-...
Apparently they come with a CD - you could look for info about that on it, or for a format utilty on that.
If the data you had on the drive was valuable to you, or if you're just curious about whether you might be able to recover the data that was on it.........
There may be a free utility like that on the CD that came with it but I doubt it. ......
A help page. How to fix errors and format USB drives: http://www.quickonlinetips.com/arch... Includes info about you must pay attention to the remove drives safely feature.
hello... This problem i have also faced with my kingston 2Gb pendrive. this problem occurs when it is not safely removed and what actually happens is that its file system gets converted from Fat32 to Vfat which is supported in Linux Operating System. Try to run this pendrive in linux as i did and it get read there. But the problem is vfat is not read by Win xp and win xp can format it in Fat file system.
I have tried formatting it in linux with fat file system but not able to do it...
if anyone knows how to format a pendrive in linux with fat file system, do reply..
"...what actually happens is that its file system gets converted from Fat32 to Vfat which is supported in Linux Operating System..."
It it was originally FAT ot FAT32 (that's the default when you get the flash drive new), that's not possible, but it could very well be whatever damage was done (by you not using the remove drive safely feature) Linux is able to get around that and read the files anyway.
If you have not formatted it in Linux, you could delete the existing partition on the drive in XP and make it again. You do that in Disk Management in XP (Control Panel - Classic View- Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management) BUT of course, if you want to save the files Linux can read you need to copy them some place before you delete the existing partition in C.
If you have partitioned or formatted it in Linux, you will probably have to delete the existing partition in Linux, then make a new one in XP. For a 2gb flash drive in XP, you should use either FAT or FAT32.
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