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As windows is recognizing the flash drive, you do not need to buy a new one until you can determine it is completely defected. I wish you had included more information like the operating system, what method you tried to format it and what file format(FAT or NTFS) or the complete error message. I am assuming you used the standard method(right clicking the drive in the 'My Computer'/'Computer' window and clicking format). Try the following steps:

- Check to make sure there are no open files or windows from that flash drive. If there are, close them and try again.
- If it does not work, open the command prompt by typing 'cmd' in start>run(if you have Vista or Windows 7, type 'cmd' in the start search field, right click on the option that appears at the top of the start menu and select 'run as administrator')
- In the command prompt, type 'attrib -r -h -s ./s x:\*.*' without the quotes replacing x with the drive letter for the flash drive. Press enter.
- Type 'format /FS:FAT32 X:' replacing x with the drive letter for the flash drive and replacing FAT32 with NTFS if that is the file system you want to format it with.
- Then format it the regular way again.

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With what you have written, I can understand you are unable to format the drive that you have since you are getting the error message, it would have been great if you would have mentioned the error in full. This error may be due to either a write protect switch, bad drive, security issue etc. We will try some steps here:

(a) Check your 8GB drive to see if there is any slider switch that is making it write protected.
(b) Click on start menu and then right click on My Computer. It would show Manage option. Click on it and in the new window on left side click on Disk management, in the list, locate your drive and check information. Here you can right click on the drive and try to format again.
(c) Opening DOS prompt by typing start>cmd in the search box, click on cmd above, once the black window opens up type FORMAT X:/FAT32 where X is your drive letter you are trying to format.
(d) If you have installed any security software in the drive to keep it protected first it will have to be removed.
(e) Try to format this in another system and see if the same issue is there, if yes, the drive may have to be replaced.


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