I downloaded a MINT iso file. Then I used Etcher to make a bootable Linux Mint on a brand new USB 3.0 stick having 34GB. I then used that stick to install Mint on one of my spare laptops. That Mint works fine. HOWEVER, not so the rest of the story. Since I no longer needed the Mint software on my 32GB USB stick, I decided to format it & return it to stock. Whoops! After Windows formatted the stick, it now says that my stick has a capacity of only 3.85MB!!! What happened to my 32GB? How can I fix my stick?
bellgamin, Have a look at the stick in Disk Management. What is the Disk Size? Disk Size is the left column. Does the disk contain a 3.85 MB partition?
Before now, I never even heard of Windows' Disk Mgt tool. I found it, ran it, & got the following info: that stick has 3 partitions -- #1= 4MB healthy (I guess that's 3.85MB rounded), & #2= 1.89GB unallocated, & #3= 26.74GB healthy (primary partition). Very interesting! Until now, I had always assumed the Windows' Format process would clean the entire USB stick. Evidently, however, it can't discern when a stick has been partitioned. So now, how do I get rid of the partitions & thereby regain that USB stick's full capacity?
It's been a while since I played with partitions. If memory serves right: You could use gparted in Mint, remove boot flag from one of them first. Or in windows You should be able to format each partition, one by one.
Linux ISO to UFD. Etcher creates 2 partitions on the UFD. A 4 MB EFI partition and a Linux Native partition and an area of free space. Rufus creates a single FAT32 partition. Delete any partitions (in Disk Management) on your UFD so the entire disk is Unallocated Free Space. Then create a single exFAT partition.
It's more than "cool" --- it's a flaming JEWEL! It made my UFD usable & fixed a few others besides. It's free, tiny, & doesn't require an install. THANKS to the nth & beyond! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ P.S. I got initdisk.exe for free from HERE.
As mentioned above, you don't need to boot back into Windows to fix your stick, should it happen again. Gparted (or whatever disk management tool your distro ships with) can do the job. Just delete all partitions, then create a new one, probably NTFS is the best over-all format option for you.
Windows by default does not create any partition on usb sticks. To make it the most compatible with Windows it is better to just delete all partitions and create filesystem on entire storage. NTFS support isn't that good on Linux, although it is much better since linux kernel version 5.15. exFAT may also be a quite good option.
if you have a win 10 computer kicking around, you can use the "clean" command in diskpart. Sometimes windows formatted sticks get messed up in linux. Or at least that's what windows says on occasion.
Windows's built-in tools may get confused by how you can partition USB thumbdrive. It happened many times to me. Even diskpart commands didn't help... I used Linux commands to change that, but probably some 3rd party tools for Windows can do that. Maybe that InitDisk could help.
