winusb formatting and installation error, lost data storage on 32gb flash drive
- by Cary Felton
i recently purchased a pny brand 32gb usb drive to use for configuring a dual boot on my computer, and for hdd files backup. i also recently installed zorin os 6.1 as my main os, and then downloaded winusb for linux, and set it to install the iso for windows 8 release preview as the activation code is still good untill jan.2013, and there was an error on the installation. i rebooted the computer, plugged in the usb drive, and i went from 32gb usable space to somehow having a partitioned drive (mounted as two separate drives) one being 3.7gb, and the other being i believe 25gb or so... i then formatted the drive with gparted back to fat32, and it still read as a windows usb with the installation files on it still? so then i took my usb drive to my library which runs windows 8, i installed bootice, and completely reformatted my usb drive, and somehow it is usable, but still not perfect. it reads i only have 29.9gb usable space... i have already thought of the non usable area, and that doesnt account for this error as when i first bought the drive and plugged it in on linux, it read total drive space was 32.2 and exactly 32 was usable. somehow i am short by 2gb of space which is very critical for what i am doing. i love linux, i only needed windows for bluray playback with daplayer as it wont work well in wine, but if i keep losing space on my usb drives im afraid ill have to switch back. any help would be appreciated as i already visited pny's site, and they have no support for this issue, and im not that fond of partitions, file systems, or formatting.
