Ok so i just get this new macbook and i decide to get a new flash drive as well, its one of those patriot xt 8gb's and the problem i am having is that when i put a file on it, that i want to transfer to my windows desktop windows will not read it and wants to format it. so i try to format it to make windows happy and it only allows me to format it to 200mb i have reformatted it to FAT32 using the disk utility on osx but windows still wont read it and still wants to reformat it as 200mb when its an 8gb flash drive.... anyone know whats wrong?

i would like it to be able to be used as 8gb on mac and windows and to be able to read and write files from both os's

Format to FAT32 on the Windoze box.

i said that when i try to format it in windows it will only let me format it to be 200mb thts my problem

Have you tried "repartitioning" then formatting it on a windows system?

Yes i have partitioned it on OS X to 1 partition at the full 7.8 gb and on windows it still wants to reformat it as soon as i plug it in and it only allows a reformat capacity of 200MB

No-no, I meant repartition it in windows, not OS X, then format it also in windows.

Oh i dont know how to repartition it in windows there is no option to do that like there is with the disk utility in os x unless you have to do it in dos or with some other program

What you want is 'Disk Management'. You can get there by right clicking 'My Computer' and selecting manage. You can then find it under Storage->Disk Management.

When i did that it let me reformat the larger part but then still let me open only the 200mb part but then i just used the gnome parted linux live cd and fixed it thanks for your help though