I decided to add a modest 8Gb additional USB stick drive storage to my FireStick so I could move some apps to it and give the internal storage some breathing space. The Firestick went through the motions of formatting the drive, but on doing a drill down, it shows there is 0b available on a 0b drive!

Have tried the process again with a different stick, and get the same result. Also, when I try to put the newly formatted drive on my laptop, it is no longer recognised, playing the USB tone on plugging in, but not showing up in 'my computer', so I have now trashed 2 x thumbdrives.

What did I do wrong, and can I at least recover the sticks to use on my laptop?

try using Diskpart to recover the allegedly dead drives, may not be dead but in a format windows does not recognise. I run my Firestick as a standalone for certain things, anything above and beyond i use my laptop to stream straight to the tv. I do run a program that may be frowned up on here on my stick that also gives me an option to a retro games arcade and as yet i have zero issues. Am not sure what format other than Android a Firestick runs in have never got that far into it, if it aint broke etc etc

Try a smaller drive see if its a size issue

9 minutes ago, Jimpster said:

Try a smaller drive see if its a size issue

I'm fairly confident the size isn't an issue. Mr YouTube shows exactly the same process I used on drives up to 2Tb, mine is only an 8Gb thumb drive...

It sounds like the Fire Stick has erased the disk partition.

Not sure how you get the laptop to see the USB again. Perhaps @alexp999 might be able to advise you ?

If you’re using windows. Then open disk management and post a screenshot of what partitions it shows for those sticks

 

Also are the sticks a reputable make? There can be fake ones that don’t work once reformatted because it had spoofed partitions on it. 

10 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

If you’re using windows. Then open disk management and post a screenshot of what partitions it shows for those sticks

 

Also are the sticks a reputable make? There can be fake ones that don’t work once reformatted because it had spoofed partitions on it. 

Well that's interesting, laptop does seem to recognise the 8Gb thumb drive. Yes, it's a Sandisk from a reputable supplier I've used for years so fairly confident it's not a piracy issue...

If you right click the 7.48GB primary partition you should be able to format it and assign a drive letter. Then you’ll at least be able to access in Windows

2 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

If you right click the 7.48GB primary partition you should be able to format it and assign a drive letter. Then you’ll at least be able to access in Windows

Sadly, the 'format' option is greyed out - all I appear to be able to do is, 'delete volume'...

17 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

Sadly, the 'format' option is greyed out - all I appear to be able to do is, 'delete volume'...

You should be able to delete volume then create a new one that gives you the option to format. 

1 minute ago, alexp999 said:

...then create a new one that gives you the option to format. 

deleting looks straightforward, do I create a new one by just re-inserting the drive back into a USB slot?

thats why i suggested using Diskpart, to wipe, initialise, and setup the disk

i had a couple of thumbs that messed about ran em thru Diskpart and they been golden since

 

3 minutes ago, Jimpster said:

thats why i suggested using Diskpart, to wipe, initialise, and setup the disk

i had a couple of thumbs that messed about ran em thru Diskpart and they been golden since

 

The thing is, you know what you're doing - I don't 🤣

Like asking someone to use ForScan when they can barely change a lightbulb!

theres plenty of diskpart tutorials that walk you thru it, and if you start with a supposedly dead drive nothing will be lost

and if as you say your using 8gb sticks they'll be easy to spot in the disk DIR list

 

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-clean-and-format-storage-drive-using-diskpart-windows-10

Right, deleted volume, and is now listed as, 'unallocated'. Is there a way to use the disk management to re-format? I really don't feel like learning a new language to do such a simple procedure... (Windows 7)

You gotta laugh!

I'm assuming from the tumbleweed blowing across this thread, that there isn't a 'disk management' solution to re-format the thumbdrive. Is anyone aware of a free 3rd party  utility program designed for morons where you can simply 'right click' and activate a 'format' function on the drive?

Sorry, I missed your earlier reply. Windows must not be happy with the partition table.

If you delete the 16MB volume on it too, so the whole thing is unallocated does it give you an option to create a new simple volume on the unallocated space?

If not, what options do you have if you right click where it says "Disk 1"?

It's fully recoverable from this point, just got to find where it's getting stuck 🙂

 

4 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Sorry, I missed your earlier reply. Windows must not be happy with the partition table.

 

If I right click on 'Disk 1', I get an option to change drive letter and paths, however when I try and click on that option, I get the following error...

What does it say in the Volumes tab in the properties window?

2 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

What does it say in the Volumes tab in the properties window?

Below...

Rather than trying to learn diskpart, see if this tool can get it working:

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/hp_usb_disk_storage_format_tool.html

9 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Rather than trying to learn diskpart, see if this tool can get it working:

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/hp_usb_disk_storage_format_tool.html

Darn, had high hopes of this, but as you can see, all options are greyed out as it can't 'see' the thumbdrive...

Is it being run as administrator?

10 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Is it being run as administrator?

Yes, you get an error otherwise LOL

Hmm, at this point, I'd be using diskpart to wipe the partition table and start again.

I'll see if I can find a GUI tool that can do it for you.