Recover full space of USB

[corsarul2012]

Hello,

I decided to install Windows via USB and i don't know what happened, but after re-formatting my USB, it had less space than before. Initially it was having 7,89 GB and now it has olnly 7,44 GB. What could I do, to recover the lost space?(I have treid command with clean and create partition primary with cmd, but it had no effect).

Thanks in advance!

P.S: I wouldn't like to resoft the USB, but if I have to do so...

Edited June 7, 2015 by corsarul2012

[SteveSi]

You may need to repartition it, use Windows Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) to look at the drive partitioning and re-partition..

[corsarul2012]

And how could I do that?

[SteveSi]

Google for diskmgmt.msc - plenty of youTube videos, etc.

[corsarul2012]

I can't find anything like that :(

[Sildaekar]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CD8QtwIwBQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D2EY7GUWYqHw&ei=EIh0VZzgHtPYoASX9YGYAg&usg=AFQjCNHMR5-LHsj6Pa-NLODRs6hmfuWCwQ&sig2=-A_0dH4ZZ7vL6PUNvfRz5w

[corsarul2012]

Yes, but it is for my USB and it won't appear something like this("Shrink Volume etc.)

[Mr-Protocol]

You may need to repartition it, use Windows Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) to look at the drive partitioning and re-partition..

Windows does not see multiple partitions on USB thumb drives.

To the OP: Hook it up to a linux box and wipe it with dd at least the first few sectors. Then you should be able to reformat it and have all the space available.

[corsarul2012]

Will it work with Ubuntu format tool?

[Mr-Protocol]

Maybe, but wipe it with Ubuntu first to blast out any partition table or MBR that may be on there. Then use the formatting tool on whatever OS you want.

[corsarul2012]

Ubuntu format had no effect :(

[fugu]

I'm not responsible for any damages so make sure you know what your doing! but you might try

$ sudo apt-get install gparted

$ sudo gparted

find which drive your usb is (/dev/sdc, /dev/sdd, etc) so you don't nuke your hard drive

exit gparted, then

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ofyourusbdevice bs=1M

then go back to gparted, recreate the partition table, then format it how you want, (for windows probably fat32 or ntfs)

[Mr-Protocol]

Easier option with Ubuntu:

lsblk

Will list block devices and associated partitions if they are recognized. Example of output:

protocol@Zion-VM:~$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0    80G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0    78G  0 part /
├─sda2   8:2    0     1K  0 part 
└─sda5   8:5    0     2G  0 part [SWAP]
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  
protocol@Zion-VM:~$ 

Find your sd[X] for the one matching thumb drive. Make sure to use the name of the type "disk" and not "part". Wiping out the partitions will not help you. If I wanted to wipe out my hard disk with the above output, I would use sda instead of sd[X] below. Chances are your USB drive will be /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc.

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sd[X] count=5

It will default to 512 block size, and you really only need count=1, but a few extra won't hurt.

Make sure to wait until the program returns "Records In" and "Records Out". It tends to hang a bit when writing to removable media due to the "lazy write"/write cache.

Then just reboot the computer just to make sure it actually wrote the data, and format with whatever OS you want. Should do the trick.

If that doesn't fix it, I would begin to think there are hardware issues with it.

[UnKn0wnBooof]

I know I'm late BUT everything could actually be done from Windows ;)

1. Press WinKey + R (Opens a run box)
2. Type "dispart", press "OK"
3. Grant Admin priviledges
4. Type the following commands, each line represents a return:

5. list disk
   select disk [disk number that matches your drive size]
   clean
   convert mbr
   create partition primary
   format quick
   

   Done! :D