Once I tried Google Chrome OS build from Hexxeh just to try if the new OS works. I can say that it works. Works not fully but internet browsing with Chrome goes pretty well. I used USB drive image from website (2 GB) and with the help of DiskImager I made a bootable flash disk. I started my laptop from flash key and it was safe and smooth test.

Today I wanted to use that USB key to transfer some information from one device to another. I formatted the key, because I wanted to delete all data in it. I was surprised when after the formatting the size of USB stick dropped from 8 GB to 1 GB. I checked what shows Disk management  (Control panel – Administrative Tools – Computer management). I saw several partitions: raw, unallocated and others.

So the problems was clear: Chrome OS USB image created specific partitions to his own good. And now I was not unable to do anything with them: format was not allowed and deleting partitions was also impossible.

Helpfully GIYF (Google is your friend) and I found quick and simple solution. Instructions web page is little outdated, but I wanted to share one cool app which maybe will help me in the future again. This piece of software restores your USB key to it’s original state (not in English).

I hope it will help you to fix yours USB drives.