What Happened to my flash drive?

[FlightyPouch]

So i bought a 8Gb flash drive, its brand is San Disk. I bought it because I want to store my OS there so whenever I need an installer I can repair it using my Flash Drive, but what I did is pretty bad.
I made it bootable, well it is really needed, After that, when I want to copy some files and videos there, it is full, I checked it and I was stunned that its size is just the same as the OS that I put there.
What can I do to fix this? Can I still fix it? Well, this is the first time that it happened to me.
I used the app, PowerIso to make my flash drive bootable.

[1715020625]

1715020625

[1715020625]

1715020625

[1715020625]

1715020625

[1715020625]

1715020625

[1715020625]

1715020625

[ollidolli]

if im correct once you make your flash drive to boot windows
you cant use it for anything else
even if it would be 32gb it would still hold only windows

[FlightyPouch]

if im correct once you make your flash drive to boot windows
you cant use it for anything else
even if it would be 32gb it would still hold only windows

No, that's wrong, you can still copy files from your bootable flash drive, you just made it bootable, that's the only difference. The ability to save files from your flash drive is not taken by making you're flash drive bootable, just don't delete some files from it unless it is your file.

[BADecker]

My experience is that a bootable flash drive erases all the info on the drive while the boot is being installed. The only way to get around this is to partition it ahead of time. After it is made bootable, however, you can add other files to areas that are not part of the boot areas, and still boot up with it.

A friend bought a 250 gig solid state hard drive for $140. Yet you could go to Walmart and get two 128 gig flash drives for about 2/3s of the single hard drive. My question is, is it possible to run a computer off one of those hard drives made bootable, and simply use the other flash for storage... while having no hard drive at all? This would be cheaper, but not as fast as the solid state hd.

If you did this, you could take your info with you wherever you went, without leaving any of it on your computer while you were gone.

[Foxpup]

All that's happened is you created a partition that's the same size as the ISO file. If you look at the drive in a partition editor, it will show that the remaining space is unformatted, and you must add a new partition if you want to format and use that space. Be warned that some operating systems (such as those made by Microsoft) can't handle multi-partition flash drives correctly.

[adidas]

This is an easy fix. Format your flash drive. Then download Rufus program for USB flash drives, create an ISO from your ISO file and Rufus will make it bootable without restricting the other space of the flash drive. I have a Windows 7 ISO I keep in a SanDisk flash drive and I can download and copy other files too there. Anytime I want to install Windows I do from this USB and it starts. Other files in the USB don't hinder the installation.

[Turkiwi]

why not just buy a new flash drive, they aren't expensive and can easily be replaced