Can I recover my wrongly formatted USB stick?

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Miklos Botond

Miklos Botond

Reputable
Jun 1, 2014
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4,510
Approximately a year ago I cancelled a formatting operation and unplugged my USB stick and after that neither of my 2 computers recognized it. I don't have any important data on it, that's why I forgot about it. Now I found it again and I want to make it work if it's possible.

Nothing shows up in device manager or disk management. I ran lsusb, on Ubuntu (I'm using Windows, ran it from CD) and nothing.

Is it possible to recover the drive or is it lost forever?
 
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Miklos Botond

Miklos Botond

Reputable
Jun 1, 2014
9
0
4,510
No popup of any sort. When I plug it in, the red LED on the stick lights up, but I think that's only because it is powered. I have other sticks, I just wanted to try repairing this one. It has been as good as dead for a year now, so if it is dead, then that's that.

Could a wrong formatting damage a stick to this extent?
 
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ronintexas

ronintexas

Judicious
Dec 10, 2012
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32,960
If you unplug a USB flash drive during a read/write operation (or even formatting operation), it can "break" the drive. Hard drives aren't as sensitive, but the adapter boards that come with some hard drives have gone bad by unplugging it without ensuring that it is ok to "eject" the drive (in the case of a flash drive, unplugging it).
 
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