USB flash drive 'not formatted' error

Dave · Jan 7, 2009

I have WinXP SP2. Just recently started getting an error whenever I install
any USB flash drive. The drives get the USB Mass Storage Driver installed
and get a drive letter. But Windows Explorer cannot open the drive. An
error window opens stating "The disk in drive X is not formatted. Do you
want to format it now?" I can use the flash drives successfully on other XP
systems so the problem must be with my system.

I removed the usbstor.sys driver, rebooted, and the new copy of the driver
did not fix the problem.

(Previously posted this in Hardware discussion group but no replies.)

Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

BillW50 · Jan 7, 2009

In Dave typed on Wed, 7 Jan 2009 08:02:05 -0800:

I have WinXP SP2. Just recently started getting an error whenever I
install any USB flash drive. The drives get the USB Mass Storage
Driver installed and get a drive letter. But Windows Explorer cannot
open the drive. An error window opens stating "The disk in drive X is
not formatted. Do you want to format it now?" I can use the flash
drives successfully on other XP systems so the problem must be with
my system.

I removed the usbstor.sys driver, rebooted, and the new copy of the
driver did not fix the problem.

(Previously posted this in Hardware discussion group but no replies.)

Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

I get the same thing when I use a SD card larger than 1GB on my Gateways.
Although no problem when I use them on my Asus EeePC SD slot. As they can
read up to 32GB SD cards. If you are using a card reader, some card readers
have the same problem as my Gateway built in SD card reader does. Although I
can read the cards just fine with a card reader that can handle larger SD
cards.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu

Dave · Jan 7, 2009

BillW50 said:
In Dave typed on Wed, 7 Jan 2009 08:02:05 -0800:

I get the same thing when I use a SD card larger than 1GB on my Gateways.
Although no problem when I use them on my Asus EeePC SD slot. As they can
read up to 32GB SD cards. If you are using a card reader, some card readers
have the same problem as my Gateway built in SD card reader does. Although I
can read the cards just fine with a card reader that can handle larger SD
cards.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu

I know that in this case my flash drive is not too big. I had previously
been able to use it on my system. I suspect that a Windows Update or some
such thing has whacked the USB Mass Storage driver or something such that I
can't get at the contents. Unfortunately, I don't use a flash drive often
enough to be able to pinpoint when the problem began.

Dave

BillW50 · Jan 7, 2009

In Dave typed on Wed, 7 Jan 2009 11:02:01 -0800:

I know that in this case my flash drive is not too big. I had
previously been able to use it on my system. I suspect that a
Windows Update or some such thing has whacked the USB Mass Storage
driver or something such that I can't get at the contents.
Unfortunately, I don't use a flash drive often enough to be able to
pinpoint when the problem began.

Dave

How old is this flash drive? And how big is it?

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu

Dave · Jan 8, 2009

BillW50 said:
In Dave typed on Wed, 7 Jan 2009 11:02:01 -0800:

How old is this flash drive? And how big is it?

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu

My primary flash drive is a SanDisk cruzer micro 1.0GB. It works fine on
any other PC. Any other flash drive I try also fails with the 'not
formatted' error including the following:
Lexar JumpDrive 512MB
HIMSA drive - unknown size

Dave

BillW50 · Jan 8, 2009

In Dave typed:

My primary flash drive is a SanDisk cruzer micro 1.0GB. It works
fine on any other PC. Any other flash drive I try also fails with
the 'not formatted' error including the following:
Lexar JumpDrive 512MB
HIMSA drive - unknown size

Dave

Maybe this will help.

USBDeview v1.29
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

You may have a hardware failure of your I/O chips too.

--
Bill
2 Gateway MX6124 - Windows XP SP2
3 Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 1GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 ~ Xandros Linux - Puppy - Ubuntu