[SOLVED] Trouble with new USB

[Alex]

I recently bought a new USB stick and in an effort to password protect it (unsuccessfully) I did something nasty to it which results in the following message when i try to mount it (metaphorically):



No idea what it means, except for the fact that the new USB appears to be unusable now.

Anyone help?



Thanks

[Scott(0)]

Hi Alex,

Assuming there's nothing on the drive that needs saving, you're best (and least time consuming) option is probably to reformat and start over. Use GParted (menu > system > partition drives) for partitioning. Does that help?

~Scott

[Alex]

No reformatting does not change a thing, unfortunately. But thanks for the suggestion. I have tried a few things from google searches but none have helped so far. I have a feeling that somehow i have deleted the original bit of software that comes with the drive that makes it work...and now it's broken.

[Wirezfree]

Hi,

Just to expand on Scott(0)'s suggestion.
You can try this to see if it helps.

Plug in the USB, Open gparted.
Make sure you select the USB stick in drop down list, top right "sdc.?"
Then Select the "Device" menu option.
Then Select "Create partition table"
and apply that. It will warn about deleting everything O.K it.
That will in effect completely put the USB stick to a virgin condition.

Then highlight the "Free Space" and create a new partition using all the space.
You can either format it EXT4 if only using on Linux
or FAT32 if you want to using across platforms.

Dave

[Alex]

I am pretty sure that is what I did. But to be extra sure I did it again:



I don't know why It only shows up as 14.9Gb and what the yellow region is, but i have noticed similar with other USB sticks.

When i try to mount it I get the same  or similar message again:



I have tried contacting the manufacturer but i hold little hope as on their site they only mention downloads with respect to Windows and Mac.

Thanks

[Valtam]

How big is the stick?

[Wirezfree]

Code:

I don't know why It only shows up as 14.9Gb and what the yellow region is, but i have noticed similar with other USB sticks.

Hi,
IIRC the "Yellow" area is reserved it's where it creates it's own in internal file/allocation structure.

It's possible you unfortunately have a dodgy/broken stick.?
((There are some dodgy sticks out there that are manufacture defects, but have been relabled))

One last test, use gparted again, remove the partition table.
This time create a new partition starting at 2 but with a size of only 1024
See if that works, if not, looks like it maybe broken.

If it works repeat, but start at 2 and make it 4096
If it works repeat, but start at 2 and make it 8192

Dave

[Scott(0)]

Hi Alex,

Referring to post #3 by Wirezfree, did you include this step?
Note: make sure you're on the proper device.

[Wirezfree]

Code:

Referring to post #3 by Wirezfree, did you include this step?

Thanks Scott(0)
Like they say, "a picture paints a 1000 words"
Dave

[gold_finger]

Have seen posts like this before and only thing that ended up working was to zero out USB with dd first, then reformat.  Might as well give it a shot.

Plug USB in and make sure you know which device name is assigned to it.  If sudo blkid doesn't show it, open GParted and find out the name from there.  (Then close GParted.)  For this example I'll use "/dev/sdb" for name of USB.  If that's not correct for you, change it in command below.

To write zeros to whole USB, open a terminal and enter this command:

Code:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=4K conv=notrunc

Wait until it completes (could take many minutes), then unplug drive.

Plug drive back in, open GParted -- create new "msdos" partition table, then make partition(s) you want on it.

Hopefully that works.