Flash drive mp3 player problem

[Elfin]

My friend bought his daughter one of those mp3 players that plugs directly into a USB port. After transferring some tracks onto the mp3 player, they removed it before it had finished transferring the data (eeek!).  Now the computer (Win 98) says that the player needs reformatting.  My question is should they click yes and let windows reformat it, or will that basically turn it into an empty flash drive that the mp3 player won't recognise?

[Potatoman]

Basically the, data is corrupt. Formatting will erase all the dataa on the drive. There should be no problem using it as usual after the format.

[stevie21]

At least one mp3 flash drive that I've seen won't work if you completely format it as some of the files needed to decode the mp3's are on the same bit of memory as any music you save to it.
Also,
http://www.adesso.com/usb_drive_faq.htm
Umax Draco, Q5:
"5. Should I notice any thing before I do the format?"

Other types of player may be different. Either way, it can't get any worse than being totally broken can it?

[Elfin]

Yep stevie21, this is exactly what I was concerned about.  When I asked the question, I was trying to help them from the end of the phone and neither of them are computer literate!  It says there is a User Guide on the driver disk but they couldn't access it.  I shall pop round today and see if I can sort it. 

Thanks for your replies.

[Thunderchild]

well if a recent one there should be no problem anyhow if it corrupt then formstting will do no more harm !