Help fix my flash drive: no drive letter / cannot reformat

[edwardb]

Flash drive: PNY 4gb mini attache, about a year old

What I did to it: used windows disk manager to write an IMG file (chrome OS) to flash drive, successfully booted.
I used windows 7 built in format tool to reformat my flash drive; it said default size is 1.00gb but I clicked format anyway.
The format worked but I had a 1gb flash drive (instead of 4gb) so I pulled out the flash drive and plugged it back in but windows explorer didnt detect it.

The situation: I used HP Disk Format Tool, it detected the drive and correctly had the drive size (4gb) but when I try to reformat it I get the error: The drive is write protected.
I went through Disk Management and the drive is shown but without a drive letter. I select Change Drive letters and Paths but I get the error: The system cannot find the file specified. Same error when trying to format through this method.

Please help!

 

[Reavenk]

I did the exact same thing just now - I was trying to install Chrome onto my EEE 701 but it failed - and when I tried to reformat my 4gig USB drive so I could reuse it on Windows, horrible things happened. First the 1 gig reformat, then when I tried to fix it it seemed like I lost the drive. I tried to find a way to fix it on Windows by searching google. Then I finally got it to reformat using my EEE instead.

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/formatting-usb-pen-in-linux/

If you don't have Linux installed, you could VM it on Windows.