I think you will find that Tails can only be run live from either a USB drive - DVD or in a virtual machine.

Tails - Frequently asked questions

tails.boum.org

 

Tails require a 64bit machine. Your XP machine is probably 32bit

 

OK, thanks.
But I was attempting to create Tails with the x64, Win10 machine. It failed and the memsticks became unallocated - they are now recognised now so that was a temporary problem, maybe fixed by a restart.
The x32 machine I used only to find and re-format the sticks, I didn't get as far as trying to run Tails. Both sticks still show properties as 1.24GB (not 32GB and 64GB) on both laptops and my desktop.
Any more ideas on how I can restore the full memory of both sticks?

 

Both sticks still show properties as 1.24GB (not 32GB and 64GB) on both laptops and my desktop.

The Tails installation has messed up the USB file system and it now needs cleaning.
Open a Command Prompt window.
Click on Start - Search - Type cmd
Right-click on cmd and select Run as Administrator.
In the Command prompt window
Type diskpart
Press Enter on the keyboard
Then Type list disk
Press Enter
Select which Disk is your USB drive
And Type select disk [put the disk USB number here]
Make sure that is it the USB drive and not another one.
Press Enter
Then Type clean
Press Enter.
Once that is done Type Exit and remove the USB drive.

How to "Clean" a Flash Drive, SD Card, or Internal Drive to Fix Partition and Capacity Problems

If your USB flash drive, SD card, or another drive isn't working quite right, "cleaning" the drive and removing its partitions is one possible solution.

www.howtogeek.com

 

I'm lost still.
I did as suggested and the response stated that the stick was successfully cleaned.
Explorer shows USB in drive D, however if I click this it says "Pease insert a disk into USB drive (D".
Disk Manager shows the drive as "Unallocated".

 

Go into Disk Management and assign the USB drive a new letter.

https://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/assign-permanent-drive-letters-to-a-removable-usb-drive-in-windows/

 

Done that. Change from drive D to drive E but it's stil 'unallocated':

 

once you clean it, you need to make it active and format it...

Go back to Diskpart and do:

list disk (confirm that it is still disk 1)
sel disk 1 (change number if it is not 1)
create partition primary
sel partition 1
active
format fs=fat32 quick

The last 2 commands should format the usb drive and make it usable.

 

If the above does not work run CHKDSK on the drive
In Command Prompt as administrator - Type chkdsk # /r
# being the usb drive letter.
There is a space between chkdsk and # and # and /r
Press Enter

 

That worked Couriant, thanks very much! Thanks too Blues. Nick

 

Ah! It worked for the smaller memory stick (32Gb) but for the 64Gb it responded with "The volume size is too big". What is the format command I need please? (I'm guessing I should use NTFS if I don't need it for Linux any more - I can make do with the smaller one and I won't try using Tails.)

 

A 32GB usb drive usually has to be formatted to fat32, as that is the limit.
Although, there are ways to do it.
For the 64Gb drive - if you intend to use the usb dive on a Windows pc - you can format it to NTFS

 

Thanks - all done, you've been very helpful.

 

How to mark a thread solved.

Above your first post in this thread, but below the black bar, on the right-hand side, you will see a "kabob" menu (three vertical dots). Click that and select Edit Thread. You will see a drop down in front of the thread title that says "Prefix". Drop that and "Solved" should be one of your options.

Real simple, huh? Who needs a dedicated button that does this in a single mouse click? ;-)