You can do physical formatting with your Windows XP. However, it is generally NOT a good idea to do maintainence on a USB drive. It tends to screw up. I would just leave it alone. If the USB drive is already screwed as is.... you could try it. use the FORMAT command with XP command line.
Alright, after doing some research into the subject, the end user cannot do a low level format. It is something that can only be done at the factory. But, you can zero fill a drve. Which wipes all the data, writing a zero to every sector of the drive. Making data recovery from the drive nearly, if not completely, impossible.
I have one utility I am using, from Seagate. It works, I've zeroed several drives with it. Using it on a 60 gb drive, it takes about 5 to 10 hours. Whatever, I do it while I sleep. So I have this external USB lacie hooked up, and I am currently doing a zero on it. Only problem is, after about 15 hours of running the utility I am only at 10%. It's a 160GB drive, so at this rate it will take 5 or 6 DAYS to complete!!! That is crap. Anyone know a utility that will do the same thing as this one, just not take nearly the amount of time?
