Hi,

I have a problem with my USB flash drive.
When I insert it to my computer it gets detected and I get a drive letter for it.
When I click the drive letter in Explorer it says 'Insert a medium in drive X:'
I can't format it in Windows XP also.

Does anyone know how to format this drive so I can use it again ?

you should be able to right click the icon for it and click format, even in windows XP

hope that helps, but it seems that that might not work either...

good luck.

I'm not sure how relevant or helpful this might be but did your flash drive happen to come with installation material? I remember that when I bought my usb key, it came along with a CD and software that I had to install before getting it to work properly on my desktop (an old computer, to say the least). However, I didn't have to go through the same process with my much newer laptop; it was instantly recognized.

The next bit is more of a hunch, but could be worth a shot.

-Hit Start
-Run
-Type in "cmd"
-See if you can locate your drive in the dos prompt thingy. e.g. cd x:/
-If so, type "format x:/" and see what happens

Good luck!

No the drive is also not accesable by command prompt.

It's reconised by the system , because I got a drive letter.
But somehow, somewhere in the bootrecord it's defined as removeable drive.

It has become in this status since I tried to make it a linux boot disk.

But I have forgotten with witch program I did that.
If I could make the drive accesable under Linux or Windows it would be great.

Just another quick idea. Have you given a look in the device manager to see if anything can be done to perhaps uninstall/install the drive?

Sorry I can't be of more help. Regrets and again, hope you find a way...

OK try this. Right click on My Computer and select manage. Then go to Storage and finally Disk Management. Then it should list all you drives and have pictures of them. If an area is grayed out it will allow you to partition and / or format that drive so it will be accessable with windows and any other FAT32 or NTFS filesystem depending on what you format it as.

I think you probably didn't install correctly your usb flash disk, try formatiing it in this way: Only for Windows:
1-Go to control panel and then administrative tools (you must have an administrator account to be able to do this)
2-Go to computer management and make sure that your USB is properly connected to your PC, laptop...
3-Maximize the storage button by clicking the plus sign next to ''storage''.
4-Click on ''disk management'' you will see a list of all your removable hard drive letters.
5-Right-click on your USB letter and choose format from the list, on the file system choose ''Fat 32'' you could refer to your help and support file by going to: Start/Help and support/ to choose the correct one, but I do prefer FAT32. Then click on ''OK'' to begin the format process.
Hope this will work and tell me how things happened. Regards!!

This post has been edited by Hadi: Jun 21 2006, 07:24 AM

The problem is that it reports 'Removeable drive' like a floppy disk or DVD drive.
And then it reports 'no media present'.

I have 2 drives of the same type the other works fine.
So there must be somthing wrong with the Master Boot record / boot record of FAT.

flash drives do not have boot records on them since they are not used for booting unless a boot disk is installed onto it. There could be something wrong with the page file, but did my suggestion work or do anything at all because even if it says no media present it will still show up under disk management. Let us know so we can better help you and bit more detail on what it says in this case would help.