[Bruxy]

I've just bought a new USB stick, a 4GB Maxell Venture, with a view to putting a load of photos on there and sticking it in with the digital photoframe I've bought someone for Christmas. It was cheap, and that's all I was worried about.

Now I've got it home, I find it's a good job I opened it first as it would've confused my sister something chronic. It's got security software on there (which I only saw on the packaging on the 8th time of checking because it's in 1pt font, no exaggeration). I normally wouldn't mind, but it's really BAD security software. It only works when you boot the computer with the stick already in - you can't put it in halfway through a Windows session (I'm on Vista) and hope for the best.

The meat of the matter is this: It won't work with the digital photoframe. I'd guess that's because it appears as two separate drives (the secure part, 1MB in size, and the actual storage part which is the rest of it). I want to completely wipe the thing so it just functions as a bog-standard USB stick - is this possible?

[DoubleHelix]

Yes, it's possible. You can use the HP USB Format Utility.

[Bruxy]

Originally Posted by DoubleHelix

Yes, it's possible. You can use the HP USB Format Utility.

I'm afraid that didn't do anything more than a standard Windows format. The drive is still separated out into two partitions... which gets me thinking; is it a partition issue?

[DoubleHelix]

What options do you have in Disk Management for the drive?

[Bruxy]

Change Drive Letter, Format, Properties. Extend/Shrink/Delete volume are not available - on either partition.

Looks like I'll just be taking it back to the shop!