4GB usb stick formatted to 1GB only?

VaguelyRapt

VaguelyRapt

Electrosexual
Power User
I have a 4GB usb stick, on which I put an image of a Chrome OS build using some program called "win32diskimager" found on softpedia. I have since decided to use my usb stick normally, but when I format it the capacity field says I only have 950MB on the disk. The Chrome OS image was almost 3GB. What can I do to get those 3GB back?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    HP dv5-1120ej Notebook PC
    CPU
    Intel Dual 2.16GHz
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVidia GeForce 9200M GS, 256MB
    Hard Drives
    320GB internal, 320GB external, 1TB external to come (big download library XD)
    Internet Speed
    Fast enough
    Other Info
    Firefox, Foobar, and AutoHotkey! Go open source!
Can you view the flash disk in diskmgmt.msc? If so, can you delete the partitions on it there and reformat the drive that way?

Some of the flash disk manufacturer's also have their own formatting tool that may assist you.
 

My Computer

System One

Solved.

I didn't think of that. I do see it in disk management, and I see it's divided into 3 partitions of 950MB's each, and another 1GB unallocated. Unfortunately, the only thing that isn't greyed out on the context menu is the delete volume option, which brings up a "This operation is not supported on removable media" message box. This is a SanDisk Cruzer, but I can't find any proprietary formatters on their site or via google.

Instead I used this formatter, and I'm back to 4GB.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    HP dv5-1120ej Notebook PC
    CPU
    Intel Dual 2.16GHz
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVidia GeForce 9200M GS, 256MB
    Hard Drives
    320GB internal, 320GB external, 1TB external to come (big download library XD)
    Internet Speed
    Fast enough
    Other Info
    Firefox, Foobar, and AutoHotkey! Go open source!
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