[SOLVED] Can someone explain how to check if a USB Flash Drive is Single Sector? Because the motherboard instructions require it?

[Beguzzles]

The motherboard I purchased for my new system is an Asus Rog Strix X570-E and I found instructions on using the USB Bios Flashback and it says quote "Prepare a USB flash drive with a capacity of 1GB or more. *Requires a single sector USB flash drive in FAT16 / 32 format. "

The part that has me very very confused is the "single sector" part. I did a google search and the only reference I could find to the words "single sector" is an article that stated "PC DOS (earlier versions at least) could only address 65,536 blocks (64K), and each block could only be a single sector. Thus, the largest size a disk volume could be was 32mb (64K * 512K)."

Now the motherboard instructions says the USB flash drive can be 1 GB or more, but the article I found above said it could only be 32 MB. Obviously it can be larger then 32 MB, since the motherboard said "1 GB or more". But really have no idea how to check if my USB flash drive is single sector or not?

Can someone tell me how to check if my USB flash drive is single sector or not? It is a 32 GB USB Flash Drive, USB 2.0, and is formatted to Fat 32.


Update: If a moderator can close this thread, I was able to get an answer from someone on a different forum. Apparently there is a typo on ASUS's website in their FAQ section on how to update the BIOS. They made a typo and wrote "single sector", when it was suppose to say "single partition". I am not sure how to close this thread, so if a moderator can please close it. Thanks.

 

[Eximo]

The drive should have a single partition, which is standard for most flash drives. Just format it for FAT32 (which may require a separate tool, Windows 10 won't make a FAT32 disk if I recall)

 

[USAFRet]

The drive should have a single partition, which is standard for most flash drives. Just format it for FAT32 (which may require a separate tool, Windows 10 won't make a FAT32 disk if I recall)

The MCT specifically formats it as FAT32.

 

[Eximo]

I don't think the ask is for creating Windows media, but for flashing a BIOS.

But that is a good way to get a FAT32 format, yes.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, Win 10 can easily format a flash drive as FAT32, direct from File Explorer.

This, with a 16GB that is currently formatted NTFS:

 

[Eximo]

Ah, I think I am remembering that Windows will default to not showing the FAT32 option on larger drives, but will still show it for drives 32GB and under. It came up once on here when someone only had a 64GB drive available to use.

 

[kerberos_20]

im not sure what single sector they mean, but maybe its related to alocation size when you format it
512bytes is single sector, try format it with this alocation size

 

[USAFRet]

Ah, I think I am remembering that Windows will default to not showing the FAT32 option on larger drives, but will still show it for drives 32GB and under. It came up once on here when someone only had a 64GB drive available to use.

I just tried it on a 2TB HDD, and no FAT32 option.