De-UnFragmenting a USB boot drive

[LoveMachine]

I recently installed OpenElec/Kodi onto a Chromebox and part of the process involved taking a USB drive and performing a factory reset with a bootable USB drive using Google's tools (described in this process here) . In the process, the 8GB USB drive was fragmented into a dozen smaller partitions. In Win7's Disk Management tools, I can see the individual partitions, some of which can be reformated, but none of which can be spanned or merged with the other partitions. Right clicking in the partitions or on the drive itself doesn't bring up any options to merge/expand them, nor is there an option to start from scratch and repartition into a single drive.

Any recommendations on tools that might be able to make the drive whole again? It doesn't even need to be a bootable drive; I just want to throw some music on it again.

 

[MDE]

I'm in a similar situation due to another Linux-based boot tool. I'd love a solution since all but 20MB of my drive is Unallocated Space.

 

[Burpo]

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/restoring-your-usb-key-partition/

 

[Smoove910]

Would probably help if you mentioned what kind of drive you have. I use Sandisk USB drives and always had success using their tool to remove crap from their drives.

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2550/~/removing/uninstalling-u3-launchpad-on-a-pc

 

[ArisVer]

No delete partition option on right click in computer management?

 

[Matt1970]

You don't want to just format the partitions, you want to delete them. If any of them are locked to where Disk Management tool cannot do anything to it, you need to use Diskpart.

Here is a pretty good tutorial on how to use it.

http://www.winability.com/delete-protected-efi-disk-partition/

 

[Dahak]

If you absolutely do not need any info that is on the usb stick you can try the following
Now one thing that could have happened is that the stick has been converted to a GPT partition format. You will know this by a * when you do the list disk command.

If there is a * and you want to convert it back to MBR, after you select the disk # type

convert MBR

Open up the Admin Command Prompt
type CMD in the start menu, Right Click and select Run as Admin

Type

diskpart

Type to find your usb stick usually the last number but MAKE SURE

list disk

Enter the number above for your stick, but MAKE SURE its the right one

select disk #

Type - This will ERASE the USB Stick so BE SURE

clean disk

Type - This create a new partition the size of the drive

cre par pri

Type - This selects the new partition

sel par 1

Type - This formats the partition, you can chose either NTFS or FAT32

format fs=NTFS quick or format fs=FAT32 quck

Type - This give it a drive letter

assign

Type EXIT when done

 

[razel]

To simplify Dahak's instructions... after 'clean' you can just exit and do the rest with
Disk Manager

 

[LoveMachine]

Success! Thanks folks.