USB flash drive no longer identified

[nicrnicr]

Dear All,

I've been trying unetbootin, usb creator, linux live, Multisystem, pend. linux and mkusb 11 & 12 in order to get a persistent hdd. So much because my requirements changed with the time.

mkusb 12 could be alright but I cannot change the layout of Kubuntu 18.04.
Since I tryed mkusb 11, which went wrong, my USB is no longer reconized by Kubuntu 11.04 nor by Windows 10.

Please, would you know what I can do?

[jlittle]

The next thing is to use the "KDE Partition Manager", or gparted if you prefer that, to write a fresh, blank, partition table to the stick, and then create a partition. Make it FAT32 if you want to use it with windows.

If the partition editors refuse to touch it, zeroing it out with dd might get over that, but one must be very careful to specify the right device, to avoid your system or your data being zeroed.

sudo dd ifile=/dev/zero ofile=/dev/sdx bs=1M

(Unplugging any other external storage might be a good idea.) Then try to use the partition managers again.

Regards, John Little

[nicrnicr]

Thank you jlittle.

As the usb flash drive is not seen in the partition manager and as I only have one hdd in the computer, I will replace sdx by sdb.

[oshunluvr]

If you're not getting any messages in dmesg when you plug it in, it's probably dead or your USB port it is.

[nicrnicr]

Thanks oshunluvr.

After I wrote what jlittle suggested me the terminal answers:

dd: nicht erkannter Operand »ifile=/dev/zero“
„dd --help“ liefert weitere Informationen.

[v7peer]

There is a mistake in the command. It should be:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx bs=1M

sdx should be pointing to your usb-stick must be sdc or sdd or...

[nicrnicr]

Thank you v7peer. I have the following answer:

auie@Latitude-E5530:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M
[sudo] Passwort für auie: 
dd: Fehler beim Schreiben von '/dev/sdb': Auf dem Gerät ist kein Speicherplatz mehr verfügbar
3896+0 Datensätze ein
3895+0 Datensätze aus
4084944896 bytes (4,1 GB, 3,8 GiB) copied, 95,8033 s, 42,6 MB/s
auie@Latitude-E5530:~$

which means:
error at writing on '/dev/sdb': There is no longer place on the device.
3896+0 Dataline on
3895+0 Dataline out

[oshunluvr]

Yeah, that was kinda my point. If the system doesn't acknowledge it's there, it won't write to it. The best test is to see if the thumb drive is recognized by a different computer. If not, toss it in the trash.

[nicrnicr]

Thank you very much oshunluvr for your help. Indeed the device didn't work on another computer. It strange. This flash drive was new. I only used it to try to let it become a persistent kubuntu 18.04 with mkusb 11.

[oshunluvr]

IME, USB drives (and most other drives) either fail when brand-new or never fail at all - you end up replacing them with something better before they finally die.

[GregM]

I'm having troubles with thumb drives too.
They work on all other computers and used to work on my 18.04 computer (before 18.04).
The only fix I have invented is to reboot the computer usually with the drive in the usb plugin, then it recognizes it.
Sometimes I can plug them in and they ARE recognized.
I'm pretty sure it's an 18.04 issue.

[Qqmike]

Back to Post #7:

which means:
error at writing on '/dev/sdb': There is no longer place on the device.
3896+0 Dataline on
3895+0 Dataline out

There is NOTHING wrong with that -- it is OK -- it is the normal output of dd -- It simply means that dd wrote all the zeros it could on that drive, up to the very end of the flash drive, and could not write another 1M zeros -- IOW, The flash drive is now correctly "zero'd out." It is not an "error" in the usual sense that we might use the word "error." It means that you told it to write another 1M zeros and it could not do so because it had written all the zeros that flash drive could take!

[Qqmike]

Next ... I would take time to test that flash drive in two different ways. (Btw, I do realize your goal is to build a persistent live USB, but I am focused on just testing the flash drive for now.)

If it were my USB, I do the following:

First, format it as, say, FAT32 and put some docs & photos on it and test it that way. Plug it in, access the files, safely remove it, plug it in again, etc.

Next, using the flash drive exactly as it is (after formatting it and putting stuff on it--no need to wipe it, no need to re-format it), use dd to build a (non-)persistent live USB, following my how-to:

Building a Kubuntu live USB flash drive installer using dd

https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...712#post378712

(and then test it by plugging it in, disregard any messages you get or don't get, re-boot the PC, enter your BIOS/firmware, select to boot from that USB, and see if the live Kubuntu starts up as it should)

[nicrnicr]

Thank you very much Qqmike!
I'm afraid I already thrown the USB flash drive away..