Not having Windows Vista or Windows 7 I'd never heard of Windows
ReadyBoost. But in looking up info on your specific flash drive I see
comments that it supports ReadyBoost. ReadyBoost has the ability to use
flash drives as memory cache while at the same time using part of the
space as a stadard disk drive. A 16GB flash drive would normally be
formatted as FAT32. However, using ReadyBoost requires that the drive
be formatted as NTFS or exFAT in order to avoid the 4GB file size
limitation of FAT32.
Questions: Are you running Vista? Is it possible that Windows' query
about formatting the drive is actually a request to reformat to NTFS or
exFAT in order to support ReadyBoost?
Chuck Norcutt
Chuck Norcutt wrote:
> I think you're in a state of denial. The indication is that the drive
> has failed in some way. I find it difficult to believe it's the fault
> of FastStone. FastStone (like other browsers) does write to a directory
> even if you're only viewing it but all it does is create/update a
> thumbs.db file in that directory. Going from application file write to
> totally destroyed drive directory structure should be an impossible
> thing without the complicity of a serious bug in the OS. That also
> seems to me highly unlikely.
>
> You need to open that second drive to assure yourself that it's good.
> If you're leery of FastStone use Explorer or even use a minimalist
> approach. Start a command line window and type DIR d: where "d" is the
> drive letter of the flash drive. If the second drive is OK (meaning you
> see a list of files from the DIR command) then you want to copy that
> data somewhere to form a second backup until you figure out what's going
> on with the first drive.
>
> What you do about the first drive depends on whether you are able to
> create a second backup from the second thumb drive. In any case I would
> apply an image recovery program to the first drive just to see what's there.
>
> Chuck Norcutt
>
>
> Brian Swale wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> As a temporary solution to my digital image storage problems, I took about
>> half my E-1 images from my hard drive and placed them on an A-Data USB
>> 2.0 Flash drive E704 - 16 GB.
>>
>> I possibly looked at them once using Windows Explorer after storage, to
>> make sure they were there.
>>
>> Until a few nights ago when I looked at them also with FastStone Image
>> Viewer.
>>
>> Now, Windows Explorer tells me that the drive is unformatted, and do I want
>> to format it now? NOT. A friend's XP laptop tells me the same.
>>
>> Actually, I told a lie. I bought two of these Flash Drives, and made two
>> backup copies of about 36 x 72 images (give or take 100%). As far as I
>> know the 2nd backup drive is OK but I'm rather scared to open it. Certainly
>> not with FastStone.
>>
>> Any comment / similar experiences with FastStone will be listened to
>> seriously.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Brian Swale.
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