• USB Memory Stick - Asks to format, but unable to
    11 replies, posted
A friend asked me to help them with fixing their memory stick, it seems when they used it in another computer it somehow got corrupt. Everytime I plug it in, it asks to format, but upon the bar reaching the end, it errors out and says it's not able to do so. I've tried a number of reformatters, to no avail. I tried accessing from cmd but I get the following error. [quote] The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted [/quote] I tried running a chkdsk, but it's a RAW drive, thus no luck there. Any help would definitely be appreciated! Thanks. [editline]11th April 2011[/editline] I've tried downloading various Drive Hexers, again to no avail. They all just ask for my money.
Try dd'ing it with /dev/urandom in Linux?
No access to a Linux computer. This is the only computer I have access to here, and it's not mine, so I don't wish to install Linux.
Just boot up a LiveCD of any distro.
It may be physically damaged, in which case there is nothing much that can be done.
[QUOTE=Master117;29110565]It may be physically damaged, in which case there is nothing much that can be done.[/QUOTE] Could be. My teacher's pendrive was damaged physically aswell, while it was 8GB it showed up 8MB and it wasn't possible to format it. So, it's pretty much dead.
It's not physically damaged. Also, it now seems to be under the impression it's 0MB, although I can now open it in My Computer, even though it previously said 4GB.
[QUOTE=Smashman;29110689]It's not physically damaged. Also, it now seems to be under the impression it's 0MB, although I can now open it in My Computer, even though it previously said 4GB.[/QUOTE] Physically damaged as in on a microscopic level. All it takes is for one FUBAR'd transistor out of a million to completely make it non-functional.
[QUOTE=Pery;29110629]Could be. My teacher's pendrive was damaged physically aswell, while it was 8GB it showed up 8MB and it wasn't possible to format it. So, it's pretty much dead.[/QUOTE] That doesn't mean it's broken, you probably could have fixed it.
Just open computer management and use the disk management tools to delete all volumes and create a single one taking up all the flash drive's space if you're in windows, or use gparted if you're on linux.
Gparted should be able to handle this with no problem.
If you want to try to recover the data on the device: Boot into a Live linux distro, or plug it into a computer that already has linux on it. If that linux cannot boot to that drive to being in a very poor state, you may want to try regenerating or chkdsk C: /r (Note: Chkdsk /r is not very effective, but it does give a good shot for some cases). Since this is a flash drive, we don't have much luck going past this, well that is if you want to discuss some professional data recovery. If you just want to reformat the drive, and windows/BIOS can pick up the device, just go into diskpart; How to get into diskpart [list]Note: Always exclude the quotation marks [*]Go to Start -> Run, Type "CMD" [*]In the Command Prompt. type Diskpart [*]Upon entry to Diskpart, type in "List Disk" [*]Type in "select drive #" ** # is a hash mark for the number your drive is. Judge by capacity [*]Type "clean" [*]Type "create partition primary" [*]Type "format fs=NTFS label="My lame ass drive" QUICK [*]Type "activate" [*]Type "assign" [*]Type "exit" [*]Now your drive is formatted to NTFS. No previous information is left, however is still recoverable if no new data is written to the device. [/list] [editline]13th April 2011[/editline] ^ Above step is for Windows Vista, or 7 users only. XP users are unable to format USB drives to NTFS with standard tools. You must acquire your own 3rd party application to format a USB drive in XP.
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