When files are deleted they are usually still physically there, unless you have
wiped them with a special program that does it many times, re-writing and
deleting. I am a little confused from what you wrote. I think that you are
trying to re-use the flash drive which you expect to be empty, but it isn't as
far as Ubuntu is concerned. Is that correct?

If there are files on the flash that you want but can't access from Linux that
is another question. I am curious why this happened because I do this all of the
time and have never experienced it, which should not be interpreted as it can't
happen. I would like to know more. It seems that Ubuntu and Windows are not
reading the file table the same. What format are you using?

If you don't care about the files then you can simply re-format in either
Windows or Linux. If you want to format the drive in Linux you can do it from
gparted
which should be installed as the Gnome Partition Manager, under System
| Administration. I am in KDE at the moment so don't have the exact
wording. If it is not installed you can do it from Synaptic or from the
terminal as 'sudo apt-get install gparted'.

You can also format from the CLI, but it can be tricky unless you are well
versed in your device names. Here is a link:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=282018

Mount your drive on a linux box and look for hidden files. There will
probably be a hidden trahs file on your drive. Either delete that file or
what is in it and that might work.

i use gutsy on one computer and windows xp on another. this
flash drive has programs and stuff installed on it. it's sort of
excessively fancy. im thinking of getting rid of all that. you gotta
click on something to remove it. is that normal for flash drives?

i use gutsy on one computer and windows xp on another. this
flash drive has programs and stuff installed on it. it's sort of
excessively fancy. im thinking of getting rid of all that. you gotta
click on something to remove it. is that normal for flash drives?

i figured i'd have to format it, just wasn't sure how.

I have a number of usb drives on my Ubuntu 8.04 system. Two are external hard
drives and one is an 8 GB usb pendrive. All are formatted with FAT32. I also
have a 20 GB external drive formatted with ext3. I can use all of the drives
from both Windows and Ubuntu without any problems, except the ext3 drive which
is only readable from Linux. In fact they also work from other distros that I
have installed: Sabayon, MEPIS, PCLOS and SUSE. I have used the same drives for
years.

The first thing that I would check is the usb drive itself. I would try to
retrieve any files off of them using whatever OS was able to read it and would
re-format the drive, in whatever OS you feel most comfortable. I would use a
format that is readable by all OSes, such as FAT 32. I would check the drive for
bad sectors if it is a conventional hard drive. If it is flash drive then I
would be a little leery about using it for anything important.

I am not sure about why this happened. Let us know if it happens again or if it
straightens itself out. If it doesn't we will attribute it to a ghost in the
machine. If it repeats try to pay attention to exactly what you did and report
it back to us.