O/T: With All The Other...........

[Tim Daneliuk]

This command line utility, 'fat32format', will solve your problem nicely:

[HeyBub]

4GB is the normal FAT32 limit. You can get around this in several ways:

1. Reformat the drive with 64Mb sector sizes.
2. Reformat with NTFS. You've said in other responses that the drive won't format NTFS.

That is VERY hard to believe.

[Swingman]

Not at all ... being a USB thumb drive, XP's Device Manager automagically assumes when it is inserted that you want it configured for "quick removal", which, since Windows does not allow "hot swapping" of drives, will try to keep you from formatting.

Things may have changed, but it was like that up to at least SP1 on XP, which is the last time I dealt with XP.

Being Windows, there might also be other configuration issues, but this was a definitely known issue when trying to format larger the 4GB USB drives when they first came out ... which is why I mentioned the possibility of this being the problem.

[Nova]

See:

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:57:23 -0500, the infamous Nova scrawled the following:

[Swingman]

... worth a shot?

[Nonny]

THE BIG JIM SAGAS

Big Jim is a pseudonym for one of the finest men who ever drew breath. Big Jim and his wife, Joan are the kind of people everyone would like to have as a neighbor. I am telling these tales about Big Jim out of my belief that they are too good to pass without remembering. This tale, one of two, was posted here one heck of a long time ago. Perhaps you'll enjoy it again. . . or for the first time.

----------------- Big Jim?s Romance

Big Jim was the type of neighbor that every person wants to have. He was the kind of fellow who would come to your house at 4:00 in the morning, if you needed help, would loan you any tool that he had in his shop, would go out with you to help cut firewood and would help you stack it when you got home. His wife and my wife were also best friends. . . with coffee in the mornings or shopping in the afternoon. On weekends, if Big Jim wasn't down at my house helping me do something, I could usually be found up at his house, returning the favor. After around fifteen years of being friends and neighbors, you get to know folks really well- you think!

Big Jim was 6 years older than I was, and was approaching his late

40's at the time. He had married Joan, his high school sweetheart, following his high school graduation and had enjoyed over 30 years of marriage. The marriage had produced a beautiful daughter, who had just graduated from high school herself. Joan and Big Jim had made a warm and welcome home on the second floor of their house for Joan's mother, who had lived with them for many, many years. Being a kind and good-hearted man, Big Jim thought of Joan's mother as an inseparable part of his own family. Big Jim's own mother still lived on a farm outside of town, and we were always driving out to spend an afternoon at her place. She was a very capable and typical farm woman: strong as any man and capable of handling herself in any situation.

My wife and I never observed any change in Big Jim, but the onset of middle age had apparently been taking its toll. Big Jim apparently thought he was slowing down a little in his love life at home, and I later heard that Joan had confided to my wife that Big Jim just wasn't the man had had been ten years earlier. Big Jim wasn't the kind of fellow who would give up anything easily, and apparently had decided that he could regenerate things a bit by having some extracurricular activity.

Working at a large office in town, Big Jim and one of the ladies at the office decided that they'd meet for a "few drinks" one Saturday afternoon. I honestly don't think that Big Jim had done anything like this in his 30+ years of marriage, but he and the "new sweetheart" decided that they'd have an affair that fateful Saturday afternoon.

The Saturday arrived on a beautiful Spring day, and Big Jim told Joan that he had to go into work that afternoon to clean up some paperwork- not at all unusual activity for him. Instead, he drove to the appointed motel, where he met "Suzy" in the bar. They had 3-4 drinks and then checked into a room. This was where Big Jim made the biggest mistake in his life!

Do you remember me mentioning earlier that Big Jim and Joan had a beautiful daughter, who had just graduated from high school? Well, Big Jim had overlooked the simple fact that his daughter had just started her new job. . . SHE WAS NOW THE 3:00p-11:00p ROOM CLERK AT THE SAME MOTEL WHERE BIG JIM HAD JUST CHECKED IN WITH SUSY.

Now, my friends, here is where the sad-but-true tale becomes exciting. For those of you who may be sensitive or deplore violence, just move on, since from here on, it gets ugly.

Big Jim and "Suzy" had just retired to the room when his daughter came on duty. The daughter looked over the new check-ins and saw that a person with her own father's name had checked into the motel about a half hour earlier. As a matter of fact, the person had used the same address as her father, had signed the register in the same handwriting as her father and had paid with a credit card with the same number as the one she had in her own purse! It seems that poor Big Jim had been drinking, and drinking too much to use common sense.

The daughter was very concerned, and even asked the outgoing room clerk if he remembered the arrival in question. He did, and described both Big Jim and his "wife." Since the daughter certainly had different ideas of her mother's description and was convinced that she only had one mother waiting for her at home, she became skeptical of her Dad's intentions in checking into the motel. To assuage that skepticism, she did what any evil, no good, rotten daughter would do: she called her mother at home and asked her, Where is Daddy?" When Daddy's itinerary he had left with her mother failed to anticipate his checking into the hotel, both mother and daughter came to the same unfortunate conclusion. . . and Hell was to soon be close at hand for my best friend.

The following was assembled as a series of fractured and fragmented tales told to both me and my wife on a number of different occasions over the weeks following that fateful assignation. Frequently, it was necessary for my good wife and me to compare our "notes" on the tales, since they were usually related to us with a great deal of crying, shouting or requiring an occasional bribe of Jack Daniel?s to spark the memory .

About an hour after checking in, Big Jim was "relaxing" in the room with Suzy when there was a knock on the door. Thinking that it was housekeeping, he approached the door with a towel wrapped around his waist and opened the door part way. There, standing in the hallway, was his daughter, his wife, his own mother and his mother-in-law. The four ladies then pushed the door the remainder of the way open and entered the room to discuss Big Jim's indiscretions and his future. There is a saying that, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," and I guess that on that fateful afternoon, Big Jim learned that applied to ALL the women in his life, and not just his wife.

The sweetheart, Suzy, sharing the room with Big Jim, ran out the patio door wearing nothing but a panicked expression, but grabbing her purse and clothes on the way out. She got in her car and drove away, totally naked, but unharmed- leaving poor Big Jim to try to explain to these four irate women what he had been doing at the motel. Whenever I hear the old joke; "Who are you going to believe- me or your lying eyes?", I think of poor Big Jim. Suzy?s escape was of no concern to the four women, since they had far bigger game on their minds.

The police were never called, but it was almost an hour before the four women in Big Jim's life paused long enough for him to even get dressed. Later, my wife told me some of the things Joan said had happened, such as Big Jim's own mother ripping away even his towel, so that, "He had nothing to hide behind," and the four women tossing him into the cold water shower to "wash the sin and filth away," . . . Frankly, I didn't even want to hear that, and the image still haunts my mind.

That evening, Joan called my wife to tell her what happened, and that she was throwing Big Jim out. Even as they talked, Big Jim arrived at my house, chuffing into my garage on his garden tractor and towing his trailer. Big Jim's eyes were puffed almost shut, he had a long scrape on his face and he generally looked like hell. The trailer was absolutely loaded with every power and hand tool that Big Jim could put in it; he wanted to know if it'd be OK to store his tools in my garage. We ended up making 5 more trips up to Big Jim's house that night with both of our tractors/trailers to clean out his closet and workshop of power tools, guns and golf clubs. All the time, the four women at Big Jim's home were outside and freely expressing their dissatisfaction with his actions of that afternoon. I was even verbally abused because, "I was his best friend and should have known what he was going to do." At my own home, my good wife of many years would deride poor Big Jim whenever we were unloading his worldly possessions into my garage.

For any of you who might be wondering, all this took place over 25 years ago. Following the incident, Big Jim did the appropriate amount of crying, begging and pleading, and by the following weekend, he had emptied my garage again and had moved himself and his tools back into his house. I'm happy to say that while the incident was never forgotten, the pain and anguish eventually diminished.

From the incident, there are at least a couple things that I learned that deserve to be shared with fellow husbands and readers of this essay:

1) If you plan on having extracurricular marital activity, consider portable tools, such as the Delta Contractor's saw and not a Unisaw. It is easier to move them if you get caught

2) Always remember where your daughter is working

[Larry Jaques]

On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:28:33 -0600, the infamous Swingman scrawled the following:

Definitely. DLed, unzipped, tried... First it said "Partition Collappsed"[sic] Then it told me to initialize the drive. I did. Then I selected the entire drive area and tried formatting: "Failed to determine drive", both with and without the Quick Format selected.

Drat, it's unusable.

[Lee Michaels]

Count your blessings.

At least it is not full of sulphuric acid and will not corrode your house/computer/etc.

Like chinese drywall.

[Larry Jaques]

On Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:01:38 -0500, the infamous "Lee Michaels" scrawled the following:

True! But I believe my luck is changing. This came via email this morning and I'm feeling so blessed!

--snip-- Our Ref: FGN /00XX/ABJ Your Ref:....................

Good Day.

This is to officially inform you that(ATM Card Number;

4278763100030014) has been accredited with your favor.Your Personal Identification Number is 822. The ATM Card Value is $6.8MILLION USD. The Office of the Presidency,The Senate in conjunction with the United State Government,The United Nations Organization and The World Bank has agreed that all payment will be through ATM CARD to avoid re occurrence of officials enriching them selves through contractors like you.

We have no time to waste on this matter as every thing is clear and obvious that within two days your card will be delivered to you through FedEx courier service company.You are highly advised to dis communicate who ever that promise to transfer your fund to you.It is not true unless you want to involve your self in another scam and will shall not be held responsible for that stupid act because we warned you.You are advise to send the following information to enable the FedEx company to deliver your ATM CARD immediately.

You shall be educate on how to use it or operate it as soon as you respond to this mail and also inform how much you will be withdrawing on daily bases.Please contact Mr Cliff Richard for the processing of your ATM CARD and Delivery to your house.His email is: [e-mail] Tel:[phone].

FULL NAME: DELIVERY ADDRESS: PHONE NUMBER COUNTRY: OCCUPATION: SEX: AGE:

Regards. SENATOR DAVID MARK SENATE PRESIDENT.FED REP OF NIGERIA.

--snip--

Oh, mercy. I can't wait! "I'll be rich!"

[Elrond Hubbard]

Larry Jaques wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Cliff Richard! I am now educate on what he's do since having a hit on the charts.

Congrats on your newfound fortune!

[Dave Balderstone]

Been siphoning off some Hopenchagen monies, have you?

[Tom Watson]

Re: Righteous Indignation

Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?

Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill! Well, I suppose ? we would have to discuss terms, naturally.

Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?

Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!

Churchill: Madam, we have already established what you are. Now we are haggling about the price.

(possibly apocryphal but to the point)

To those who profess to be without sin and therefore deem themselves qualified to cast the first stone - I would suggest that you have not been adequately tempted.

Regards,

Tom Watson

[Doug Miller]

[snip]

"The weakest of all weak things is virtue that has never been tested in the fire."

I comment to your attention the source of this quotation, a short story by Mark Twain entitled "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg".

[HeyBub]

Obviously he didn't try the "But honey, it was only sex!" excuse.

[Dave in Houston]

Exactly. About 98% of his target audience ENVY his predicament. As recently as 20 years ago I might have!

Dave in Houston

[Dave in Houston]

They all look good at closing time.

Dave in Houston

[Dave in Houston]

Any ammo left having shot yourself in the foot already?

Dave in Houston

[HeyBub]

I've seen a lot in other venues. Strangely, however, only one article placing the blame where it really belongs:

Wait for it now...

Tiger's wife.

Yes, a husband doesn't diddle multiple trollops in every city with a putting green without the wife knowing or at least "knowing." That she didn't say or do something, such as shooting her husband, gave tacit permission and encouragement to his behavior.

Now she's playing the aggrieved victim. How droll.

[keithw86]

Oh, good grief! I suppose all rape victims' clothing was too suggestive too. Get a grip on it!