Unable To Format A Usb Stick

[zingo1327]

I bought a USB stick from Amazon and my computer asks me to format it. When I try , I get the message that windows is unable to format this drive. My operating system is Windows XP.
I've taken it to 2 computer repair shops and both formatted it for me(for free) so I don't want to pester them again.
When I took it to the shops there was no free space on it (although it was brand new) and on leaving the shops after being formatted there was about 60gb free space.
When I got it home I checked its properties and found once again there there was no free space on it and again.was asked to format it but windows is unable to format it
Help..Something must be happening when I plug it into my desktop.
Long story but I hope that someone can help.

[Guilbert53]

I doubt XP can cope with anything that big. When XP came out hard disks were only about 20Gb and nobody has ever seen anything over 60Gb in size.

One of the perils of being on an ancient unsupported operating system like XP.

Time to move to Windows 7 or 10 on a new PC.

Also note there are various was to format (FAT32, NTFS etc). If you are formatting as FAT32 I think there is a size limit, 32Gb I think.

Try formatting as NTFS if XP will let you.

[fender62]

try this program
http://www.authorsoft.com/usb-disk-storage-format-tool.html

[zingo1327]

thanks fender62. It worked a treat