Something went wrong while formatting my USB stick, now I can't reach it at all.

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omerfbingol

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Jan 21, 2014
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I have a Kingston DTI-1 GB USB drive. I had Mem Test86 installed on it, then tried to format it to NTFS by HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool in order to install Slax. Halfway through, a message window appeared saying "The operation did not complete because the media is write protected". Since that, Windows shows the USB drive in Device Manager as a "disk drive" along with my HDD; in the Disk Management window, a raw partition with no drive letter. I can't assign a drive letter, because it says "cannot find the specified file".

I don't know why I got a message about USB stick being write-protected and I need help to use my flash drive again. What should I do?
 
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coomanperson

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May 31, 2012
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So I think if you go into Disk Management (Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions Win7) on your computer, you should see an unformatted drive or something of the like. You can then format it from there if indeed it errored and removed all formatting and partitioning that was on the drive. Right click on the far left box (Disk X) and create a new volume, you can from there format it if it isn't bricked.

It won't have a drive letter assigned to it, but you will have the option. Why use an external tool to do something windows can do on its own?

Let me know if that worked!
 
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omerfbingol

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Jan 21, 2014
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When I right click and choose "format", a window appears with file systems and quick format options etc.. then I click on "OK" then it says "cannot find the specified file".

I don't think it is bricked, because Windows notices when I plug it in, and reads size and the name "Data Traveler 2.0". I think someting's gone corrupted on its MBR or something..
 
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coomanperson

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May 31, 2012
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Ok, From the box where I said to right click I can't find any context menu that allows me to "Format...". So the name shows up and it is aware of the size, does it list the size in the bottom half of the disk management screen as "unallocated"?

A screenshot would be nice of exactly what you are seeing from the Disk Management screen.
 
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omerfbingol

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Jan 21, 2014
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Of course, my bad..
This is the Disk Management screen:
KrRLWM.png


Right click menues in one pic:
ea0q9O.png

 
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omerfbingol

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Jan 21, 2014
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Well, I think I finally solved the problem..

Good thing I focused on the MBR subject. I searched the internet and found out there is a tool named "MBR Wizard" with free command line version available. So, I downloaded the tool, but didn't know anything about running with command prompt, so tried to run it via cmd.

Typed something like "c:\users\username\desktop\mbrwiz64.exe /repair=1 /disk=1" . So, you can see how amateur this attempt was. But I kept on, typed the command "/wipe=mbr /disk=1" and deleted MBR information on USB drive. Then typed "/repair=1 /disk=1" to write an XP MBR information on it. By this way, my computer assigned a letter to the drive and recognized it as "unallocated" at disk management window. If you only repair MBR, it doesn't work. You should wipe first, and repair later. I learned that after a couple of failed attempts and a lucky coincidence.

Then I ran a USB format tool I came across lately on torrent. It's named "Repair 2.9.1.1" but I couldn't find any information about its source. But it successfully formatted my USB drive, so it's all worked out very well for me! Note; HP's format tool and the Windows' "format" option didn't help at this point. I tried "Repair 2.9.1.1" and luckily it worked.
 
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