How do I reclaim a lost partition on a USB flash drive?

[1Canuck]

Well, long story short, I tried installing Mint 11 on a new 16gb USB flash drive and things went badly. I've since uninstalled Mint 11 from the USB drive and am begrudingly living in Windows 7 for the time being (until I get the issues worked out). When I installed Mint 11 on the USB drive, I had it create a 2nd partition (rather than doing a complete install over top of everything) on the USB drive. After I removed Mint 11 from the USB drive, the partition that Mint created (8gb) is still there taking up about 1/2 of my 16gb USB's space. But, I'm unable to format the entire drive, the Windows formatting option only sees the non-Mint section and the Mint section seems to be invisible somehow. So, how do I reclaim that lost/phantom partition so that I can start with a full 16gb USB flash drive again?

Thanks!

[nunol]

Use a linux live CD/DVD or pen to boot Mint 11, use Gparted to format the USB pen or delete the failed Mint partition and grow the Windows visible partition.

[1Canuck]

Use a linux live CD/DVD or pen to boot Mint 11, use Gparted to format the USB pen or delete the failed Mint partition and grow the Windows visible partition.

Hmmm. Well, thanks for the suggestion. That didn't work so well. Now I currently show 2 "unallocated partitions" and am unable to re-size either, since the re-sizing option in gParted is grayed-out and not selectable. Any other suggestions? FYI, I should point out that I'm not fluent in Linux, so keep that in mind with your response(s) please! Thanks

[nunol]

Use Gparted to create a new partition with Fat32. That's it!

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb54TsYI6UA

[1Canuck]

Use Gparted to create a new partition with Fat32. That's it!

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb54TsYI6UA

Thanks for the links. I'll get back to you...ooooh...maybe next week after I've read through that encyclopedia! lol But seriously, thanks!

[nunol]

No problem, take your time but the Youtube tutorial is only 11 minutes...

[1Canuck]

No problem, take your time but the Youtube tutorial is only 11 minutes...

Got it, all fixed now. Thanks again very much for the assistance.
Now, back to the drawing board for me to see why I had issues with the Mint 11 install to my USB in the first place

[nunol]

Glad to know it worked.

If you need more help just ask.

Cheers.