# Formatting an 8GB usb stick as FAT16?



## Carol

Hi all, 
I have a big pile of routers that will not read anything except a FAT16 formatted USB drive.  I also have a nice pile of 8GB thumb drives...a size too big to format to FAT16

Has anyone successfully done this?  The Windows partition tool will not resize the drive.  

I dont care about losing space on the drive, 1GB formatted in a way my router can read is more valuable to me than 8GB my router cannot read.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2


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## Carol

I use Win7 and Fedora 16

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2


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## Xue Sheng

You might be better using an external USB DVD/CD Burner and if the files are really big go for a burner that can handle Dual Density DVDs

Had a similar problem with an XPSP3 PC it too thought it was FAT16 but in the case of the PC it was dead and all files were unrecoverable


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## Carol

The files are between 25 and 100 MB but only one is used at a time.  We do have an external burner here but thats not practical to put in a field kit

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2


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## Xue Sheng

Carol said:


> The files are between 25 and 100 MB but only one is used at a time. We do have an external burner here but thats not practical to put in a field kit
> 
> Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2



Practicle or not it may be the quickest and easiest fix but at FAT16 you may actually be looking at a ZIP Drive and good luck getting one of those (Cheaply) if you don't have one avaialbe

And although I have never done this, have you tried formating the stick via DOS (Command Prompt)

 FORMAT [drive letter]: /FS:FAT16


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## Bob Hubbard

buy 256mb and 512mb sticks.


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## Bob Hubbard

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-format-a-usb-memory-stick-to-FAT/



> Put the memory stick into your computer(duh!)
> 
> open command prompt ( start > all programs > accesories > command promt.   or    start > run > cmd)
> 
> 
> type:
> format x: /fs:FAT
> 
> PLEASE NOTE X IS WHERE YOU MEMORY STICK IS LOCATED WHERE THE X IS YOU SHOULD PUT THE LETTER OF YOU MEMORY STICK IN MY CASE _ *E* _  ; AND PLEASE DO NOT ACCIDENTLY FORMAT YOUR HARD DRIVE ITS NOT MY FAULT  IF YOU FORMAT YOUR HARDDRIVE SO BE VERY VERY CAREFULL!!!!!!!



Win 7 may not do this.  You may have to find an XP system.


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## Bob Hubbard

Another option, Win 7 friendly.
http://superuser.com/questions/202160/how-do-i-format-my-8-gig-usb-drive-to-fat-fat16-in-windows-7


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## granfire

Bob Hubbard said:


> buy 256mb and 512mb sticks.



:lol:

WHERE?!!

I have not seen anything smaller than 4 gig I am thinking as of late! 
:lfao:


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## Bob Hubbard

http://www.amazon.com/512MB-Pen-Dri...UTF8&qid=1361377495&sr=8-1&keywords=512mb+usb


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## granfire

of course...:lol:


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## crushing

Carol said:


> I use Win7 and *Fedora 16*
> 
> Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2



Check out GParted for Fedora.  http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
su -c "yum install gparted"


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## Kurai

crushing said:


> Check out GParted for Fedora.  http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
> su -c "yum install gparted"



Definitely the way to go!


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## Xue Sheng

Carol said:


> We do have an external burner here but thats not practical to put in a field kit



I forgot to show you my field kit :EG:







and


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## granfire

you forgot


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## jks9199

Y'all are just too fancy!  

Tactical field repair kit item 1:
View attachment $image_67111.jpg

If that fails, use item 2:


and return it to IT, labeled clearly as "BROKEN!  Don't know what happened to it...."


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## Xue Sheng

jks9199 said:


> Y'all are just too fancy!
> 
> Tactical field repair kit item 1:
> View attachment 17702
> 
> If that fails, use item 2:
> View attachment 17703
> 
> and return it to IT, labeled clearly as "BROKEN! Don't know what happened to it...."



No no no...you're talking about repairing something different...we're talking computers/servers... and don't try and tell me otherwise because back in my days as security for the state I had Tactical field repair kit item 1 

Way back then there was also a Tactical field repair kit item 3 but seeing as this is Carols thread I am hesitant to show it


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## Carol

Ahhh Xue, now you know the REAL reason behind my broken Mag Lites  

Had to keep my laptop running Windows all day for Visio stuff.  So, I tried the Windows method (Thanks Bob!!) to shrink the drive down.  It works like a charm......except my router cannot read it    Tried playing around with allocation size, even took a 960MB flash and duplicated its numbers.  Still doesn't work.  

Cisco routers, especially the lower-end models are notorious for not reading floppy drives because Cisco wants you to buy their own outrageously priced USB drives. 

I've installed gparted, I'll give that a try tomorrow.  But its looking like I may indeed have to go out and buy a bunch of small USB drives.  Seems like the smaller the USB, the greater the chance that it can be read.


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## Xue Sheng

Well, I just got toorand read my e-mail and today I highly recommed this tool for PC/Server work


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## Carol

Bob Hubbard said:


> http://www.amazon.com/512MB-Pen-Dri...UTF8&qid=1361377495&sr=8-1&keywords=512mb+usb



After a fair amount of sweating, and cursing, and fdisk'ing and dd'ing, this solution ended up being the winner!   We bought a bunch of 128MB, 512MB, and 2GB flash drives, and whammo.  Instant router fixit kit 

Thanks Bob!


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