Memory stick only works temporarily.

[flobadob]

I got an 8G memory stick and put on some AVI videos onto it, which I then play on my DVD player which has a USB port. The thing is that after a while if I try to put a new AVI file onto it, the newer file won't play. The thing is that the initial files that were put on will still play, just not the newer ones. It happened before and I went to format the memory stick and it worked but now it's doing the same thing again. Does anyone know if anything can be done so that I don't have to keep formatting as this deletes everything on the memory stick?

[vascop]

Are you sure you're not just running out of space on the stick? 8Gb is not very much space when we're talking videos.

[flobadob]

Naw there is 6Gb left on it.

[fo3nix]

How are you formatting it? What does it say as the file format? (Perhaps if you look at the drive properties?)

Does it say FAT16, or something like that?

[flobadob]

I formatted it by going to My Computer then Properties of L which was the memory stick and then clicking format. It is FAT32. Is there any way to change it to just FAT as I've got a 2GB memory stick that seems to just be FAT and I've never had this problem with it.

[fo3nix]

No you don't want just FAT, you want FAT32 (I had a suspicion it might be FAT, causing some issues beyond 4GB).

Has it ever shown 8GB? And is there only one drive that appears in My Computer when you connect it?

[flobadob]

fo3nix, when I put it into the USB port it comes up as Removable Disk(K:) and when I look at the properties when it is empty it shows free space of 7.79Gb.

However I was messing about with it tonight and it seems that when I go over the 2GB mark on the memory stick is when the problem starts. Tonight it was worse as when it went over the 2GB it actually came up with a message that "Windows needs to close due to a problem", and I had to reformat it each time or else delete the item taking it over the 2GB.

Does this make any sense to you or is the memory stick just faulty do you think?

[fo3nix]

To be honest, I'm not sure.

I would try and use another machine to format the drive (FAT32 again), and see if that works.

Try and narrow down if it's your machine and/or your copy of Windows being weird, or if it's the flash drive itself.

Another option is to format the drive using GParted in Ubuntu (free downloadable liveCD), but this is getting more complicated, and if you do try this, be careful as you could erase your main hard drive by mistake!

[flobadob]

Thanks for trying fo3nix, I'll give it a go formatting on my bro's laptop but failing that I'll forget it I think would be best.