I recently purchased a 16gb flash drive. When I got it I loaded enough videos on it to fill it up so I could transfer them. The system was windows 98 on a dell optiplex. I only used it once or twice since putting the videos on and never had a problem. A few weeks later ended up getting a virus on the computer. The tech cleaned the computer and put windows xp on it and reloaded some pictures. I got it back and all was good but now when I put the drive in it is recognized and it says drive isn't formatting " Do you want to format?" I try formatting and it says windows was unable to format drive. So now I can't use the drive or make format. Any help is appreciated.

Try this file, I uploaded it myself, so no need to worry about anything. It is safe Download and Run

Format_Flash_Drive_v2.9.1.1
RapidShare: Easy Filehosting

It keeps saying usb flashdisk not found

It sounds like you need to get 2.0 USB drivers for 98


Try and get this installed
Version 2.0 usb drivers driver - usb20win98se.zip
I downloaded it and uploaded it as site found on needs registration

Download file and read the readme.TXT file
My upload, file is safe
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I'm not sure but I think that may be the problem. I am not running windows 98 anymore, the tech upgraded my system to windows XP. I have two other computers that I have immediate access to and they are running XP and Vista and I have the same problem.



I tried a program called PC inspector file recovery and it says:
Bad parameters in boot sector: bytes per sector(65281) > 32768
Bad parameters in boot sector: root directory cluster(4294967295) > count of clusters.

Give this a shot - first download link

Partition Table Doctor
Free Download Partition Recovery software.

More info
Recover Lost or Deleted Partitions. Repair Partition Table and fix partition Boot Sector error - Partition Table Doctor

Quote:

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Partition Table Doctor can help you to repair partition table and recover lost or deleted partitions except for physical damage, or hard disk (or other storage medium) failure. It is safe to use for only recovering your partitions through modifying partition table or boot sector, which means the software will never attempt to write to data area of the drive you are want to recover.

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Run the program and select "Fixboot",then choose "Interactive" mode.

Do you happen to know of any free versions

Sorry, can't find one - maybe someone will know how to go about fixing a boot sector on usb drive

I'll keep looking to see if anything comes up

One thing not mentioned-check the manufacture website for new drivers. Sometimes with flash media the drivers won't work correctly with what came installed on the device. So I would try getting new drivers. As well try using the drive on a system its never been on to see if it still tries to load itself or not.