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I have a USB Stick that i previously used as a bootable Ubuntu Stick. After i formatted it, it had only the half size of it left. (16GB stick previous.. after 8GB) Seems like the half is lost. GParted didnt worked at all ... it wont even give me the option formatting the stick.

i tried to figure it out with Testdisk and it recognizes that its 16GB in Total. When i chose in Testdisk the Type GPT, its using MS Data as format.

Disk /dev/sdb - 7866 MB / 7502 MiB - CHS 1019 243 62
Current partition structure:
     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors

Warning: number of heads/cylinder mismatches 255 (FAT) != 243 (HD)
Warning: number of sectors per track mismatches 63 (FAT) != 62 (HD)
 1 P MS Data                     2048   15364382   15362335 [UUI]

How can i restore the original Size? I tried formatting on Windows and Ubuntu without any success

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  • What I might say is that there may be a file in the usb drive that is keeping it from being reconfigured, so that the Ubuntu won't fail during install, try 100% wiping the drive. Go on to Ubuntu, and open the flash drive folder. Then hold CTRL and press H to see hidden files, and delete them all, then right click on the drive in the sidebar, and click Re-format. If that doesn't work, please tell and I will try to more effectively troubleshoot.
    – David
    Sep 16, 2015 at 12:33

2 Answers 2

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Sounds like a wrong partition table. In gparted steps would be:

  1. Insert USB-Stick to computer
  2. $ sudo gparted
  3. Select Device (e.g. sdb) -> Right Click -> Unmount
  4. In top bar click Device -> create Partition Table -> msdos
  5. You should be able to format to your desired filesystem

If this doesnt work you can also use the command line version parted described in following howto. This basically does the same without a GUI.

http://trisquel.info/en/wiki/how-format-external-storage-device-using-parted

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  • This did not work for me. gparted does still partition only 1GB instead of 16GB :-(
    – Manuel Manhart
    Nov 5, 2017 at 16:13
  • Worked like a charm. Unmounted existing USB stick partitions deleted them then followed instructions - several warning ignore button clicks and voila.
    – alex
    Mar 29, 2018 at 10:36
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I've had this problem a few times after using a USB drive as FAT, then EXT, then NTFS, etc. Eventually, after all these format and partition table changes, the computer just can't see half or more of the drive anymore. I know it's not a counterfeit, because I've previously used it at full size, without a problem. Repartitioning, reformatting, or repairing the partition table never helped.

What did work for me was installing gparted AND gpart, then running "Attempt Data Rescue" in the "Device" menu in gParted. After about 10 min on a 4GB drive, the process finished and reported it found no broken partitions. However, all of the missing space on the drive reappeared as unused space, and a quick reformat brought the drive partition up to full size.

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