Vista backup cannot reuse the same flash drive

How can I reuse my flash drive to another backup? Vista knows it has been used before, even if I deleted the old backup.
thanx

Hi Joy77,

Is there anything else being stored on another flash drive backups? Otherwise, you might save a few headaches and just format your drive.

Warning

  • Formatting a volume will destroy all data on the partition. Be sure to make backups of all the data to save before you begin.

  • You cannot format a disk or partition that is currently in use, including the partition that contains Windows.

  • Quick format is a formatting option that creates a new file table, but do not completely overwrite or erase the volume. A quick format is much faster than a normal format, which fully erases the existing data on the volume.

  1. Open Computer Management by clicking on the button start , clicking Control Panel, clicking system and Maintenance, click Administrative Tools and then double-click computer management.  If you are prompted for an administrator password or a confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

  2. In the Navigation pane, under storage, click Disk Management.

  3. Right-click the volume you want to format and then click on format.

  4. To format the volume with the default settings in the dialog box format, click OK, and then click OK again.

    For more information about the formatting of a partition, see create and format a hard disk partition.

Cody C
Microsoft Answers Support Engineer
Visit our Microsoft answers feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

Tags: Windows

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