Broken or Fixable?

Match Me Sidney

My father came back from China a short while ago, and while he was there picked up an 8GB pen drive on the cheap. I just tried it there the other day and it doesn't seem to work. Every time I attempt to format it I get a message telling me, just as it reaches the last progress bar, that it is unable to complete formatting. Even quick format doesn't work. Still, although it won't allow me put data onto it, the formatting screen recognises it as having an 8GB capacity.

The drive says SONY on the outside, but seeing as he tells me he got it at an outside market, I'm guessing it's a knock off.

What do you think, am I wasting my time and should chuck it in the bin, or is there another way to format it?

Cheers!

Ghost Train

can you format half of it maybe

hp have a tool that more than the basic format, making drives bootable... maybe makes smaller partitions, might be worth trying

this might be it
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,64963-page,1-c,downloads/description.html

might find some info here on partitions
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18736.html

Match Me Sidney

Thanks for the advice eolhc! Tried those sites and reformatting the drive again, but didn't have any luck. Must be fairly knackered... suppose it's destined for the bin so. Cheers again for the help.