Yet another: Can't format USB stick

Spright · May 29, 2014

I know, you've all heard it for the thousandth time. Still, I'm at my wits ends.

My CnMemory 16 GB USB stick (flash drive) is acting crazy. It does appear as Drive E:, and I can even play the music files on it! But it won't format using Windows's (or Linux Mint's) format utility (write-protected), and moreover, all the specialized tools out there, to which everyone in these forums always responds with "Yes!! It saved me", such as Restore, Restore Neo, HP USB Format Tool, they all fail to recognise the drive.

In addition, I've checked for the StorageDevicePolicies in my Registry, and there wasn't such a key. I added one and set it to "0", to no avail. Diskpart also doesn't see my drive, but I understand that this is the case in Windows XP.

What's left to do? How can my schizophrenic stick behave on the one hand as if it's quite healthy, playing Radiohead MP3s that are saved on it without complaint, and on the other hand won't be formatted and won't even appear in most utilities.

Thanks!

vrumor · May 29, 2014

All the time youve been messing around with the stick, you couldve purchased another cheap USB stick and been ahead of the game in terms of time spent/cost.

Spright · May 29, 2014

vrumor :

Is this your official recommendation, to always buy new stuff when old stuff gets broken?

vrumor · May 29, 2014

It is when the cost of messing around with it for hours on end, and it being a cheap stick to begin with. And sometimes, doesnt matter what you do with it, it isnt going to work. If you have all day to futz with it, futz away. Can get a name brand 16gb stick for like $10.

Someone Somewhere · May 29, 2014

One comment: "Yes, this wonderful software saved me" type posts from new members are frequently spam. Take them with a grain of salt.

Use dd (make sure it's run as root; use sudo) to write zeros to the whole drive, then make a new partition table with GParted.

Spright · May 29, 2014

vrumor :

First, why is CnMemory not brand enough, in your opinion? Made in Germany, have a real address in Paderborn, Germany, not far from my home, have an extensive customer support, offer guarantee... What else do you wish?

Second, the forums are filled with similar complaints about sticks from SanDisk, Transcend, you name it (only all were solved in the end, and mine still isn't). You think my stick being "cheap" is the problem here? Doubt it. It had worked for quite a while.

Spright · May 29, 2014

Someone Somewhere :

Can you please tell me the exact dd parameters to do this? I'm not familiar with the syntax.

vrumor · May 29, 2014

Not sure why you are taking offense to my suggestion. Im simply saying that spending hours on something that may not work properly again versus buying new and using it right away, is just not a good use of time, in my opinion. No need to get offended by it. Try what SS suggested if you are deeply offended by my calling your stick cheap.

Someone Somewhere · May 29, 2014

Code:

df -h

Find the name of the drive (e.g. /dev/sdb) in the output of that.

Code:

sudo dd bs=8M if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sd[b]X[/b]

This writes zeros in blocks of 8MB over /dev/sdX. Make sure you get the right drive; you don't want to do this to your OS. It'll take a while.

Spright · May 29, 2014

vrumor :

First: not offended, just perplexed. You boast 268 solutions in this forum, I'm sure most of them weren't "Go buy new".

Second: how should one know in advance whether it'll take hours to fix something? Each specific solution takes five minutes, and it's always tempting to try the next one, as you may know. Considering that my next USB stick may be plagued with the same problem, it's quite worth looking for solutions; otherwise this forum wouldn't exist...

Third: not offended that you called my stick cheap, just wondering why, and I still have no answer to that.

Someone Somewhere · May 29, 2014

Even medium-large USB sticks tend to be <$20. Depending on where you work, you could easily get that back pretty quickly.

Spright · May 29, 2014

Someone Somewhere :

Code:

df -h

Find the name of the drive (e.g. /dev/sdb) in the output of that.

Code:

sudo dd bs=8M if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sd[b]X[/b]

This writes zeros in blocks of 8MB over /dev/sdX. Make sure you get the right drive; you don't want to do this to your OS. It'll take a while.

"dd: writing ‘/dev/sdc1’: Operation not permitted".

Someone Somewhere · May 29, 2014

OK. You're fundamentally unable to write to the drive; that means that it's an issue in the controller chip.

Run this to get some more info on the drive:

Code:

sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdc

Spright · May 29, 2014

Someone Somewhere :

OK. You're fundamentally unable to write to the drive; that means that it's an issue in the controller chip.

Run this to get some more info on the drive:

Code:

sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]: f0 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 26 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

ATA device, with non-removable media
Serial Number: ��
Standards:
Likely used: 1
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 0 0
heads 0 0
sectors/track 510 0
--
Logical/Physical Sector size: 512 bytes
device size with M = 1024*1024: 0 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 0 MBytes
cache/buffer size = unknown
Capabilities:
IORDY not likely
Cannot perform double-word IO
R/W multiple sector transfer: not supported
DMA: not supported
PIO: pio0

Someone Somewhere · May 29, 2014

Damn; can't do ATA commands over USB. At least that means you probably don't have any kind of security locks on it.

Hmm. I'll keep looking.

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Yet another: Can't format USB stick

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