quote:
Originally posted by nimicitor
Format the drive as NTFS or exFAT.
That really shouldn't be needed.
I have been using 16GB USB sticks (Cruzer type from SanDisk) on XP, Vista and Win7 myself for a few years now, without any problems at all. They all were preformatted as FAT32. So, I doubt this has anything todo with the filesystem.
However, it is quite possible that whiz' Windows XP doesn't have the proper updated drivers for such USB peripherals and/or there is something wrong with the USB stick itself.
It is also possible that some settings in Windows are not exactly right.
eg: You can optimize the USB connection between "fast removal" and "better performance" (in the usb device properties). If you choose the later, and you pull out the USB too early, you will have errors on the disk*. It is best to set it to "fast removal" imho so you don't need to use the 'Safely remove hardware' wizard each time when you want to pull the stick out (the performance gain with "better performance" is neglectible anyways tbh). Although, you will often see that people do recommend using the 'Safely remove hardware' wizard though. I can't blame them. But from my experience it is not needed if you choose "optimize for fast removal" and, to be sure, if you always wait like at least 10 seconds after you are sure Windows has been done writing. Never had any problems doing that (and I use those 16GB sticks all the time on a daily basis both at home and at work -
I really need to start thinking to install a home network 
).
This said, on one computer at parents home (Windows XP too; but not quite up-to-date) I have problems with many USB sticks too, no matter how big or small they are. I suspect this is due to the USB hardware itself, some sort of caching problem. Because I noticed that when I write large amounts of data to the USB stick in one go, Windows can't 'keep up' so to speak and kind of chokes up and fails to write the last couple of data. When you write in small amounts (eg: only a few files at a time) it works without any problems. I also have tried the formatting method (reformatted to NTFS) before but that didn't help either.
* Formatting the usb stick with a journaled file system like NTFS or Ext3 might prevent some write errors, but this comes with a cost too if such events happen: they become slower (because the next time the journal needs to be cleaned up, rewriting out to the stick, etc). And Ext3 (or other more 'exotic' file systems) are not compatible with Windows without installing additional stuff.
So, even if you do choose to reformat the stick (although, as said, most likely this is not were the problem is), you better choose NTFS over any other, just for the sole fact you then don't need to install anything else then. Also the fact that there is no extra benefit from installing Ext3 or other *nix compatible filesystems if you never are going to use that drive on *nix.
/ 
