Recently I had a USB stick that had a live ISO written to it. On it were a few partitions, Linux formatted with the standard system files you would expect written to it.
I needed to wipe it and format it FAT to move a file. I happened to have a Windows system at the moment. Easy to do, right?
NO! Of course not!
Here was my experience:
- In File Manager, right-click the drive to try and erase and re-format it. Nope! That apparently cannot be done.
- Open Windows Partition Manager to try and delete the partitions. Partition Manager refused to perform any operations on the drive.
- I went and got a Linux system. Move the USB stick to it, and erase the partitions.
- I move the USB stick back back to the Windows system to format it and move the file.
- Open Windows Partition Manager again and try to make a new partition on this blank USB stick. It consistently locks up trying to make a new partition on it.
- Back to Linux! I make a new partition and format it FAT32.
- Back to Windows, try to drop the file onto it. File is too large. Ok, that is my fault, I forgot the 4GB limit. Right-click the USB stick to format it exFAT. NOPE! Doesn’t work.
- Back to Linux! I format it exFAT.
- Back to Windows, drop the file onto it. FINALLY!
ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS FORMAT A USB STICK AND MOVE A FILE!