format a usb stick

[jsfarinet]

I've a problem with a usb stick i formatted long time ago as multiboot (under debian). Now,for some reason this stick is not recognized anymore.Not even by cfdisk, parted or gparted. 'udisks --enumerate shows it,on the other hand. I'm pretty it is broken softwarewise not hardwarewise

I tried to format it on a macintosh, but it did not show up there anyway (and i'm not really familiar with macos ).

Is there some tool, i could use to override the mbr and the corrupted boot sector, so that it will turn back formattable?

TIA!

[gapan]

Post the output of

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sudo fdisk -l

before and after you insert the usb stick.

Also post the last lines of

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sudo dmesg

after you insert the usb stick.

[jsfarinet]

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sudo fdisk -l

only shows the internal hd (sda).

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sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdc

shows this:

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WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdc'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Platte /dev/sdc: 773 MByte, 773652480 Byte
15 Köpfe, 48 Sektoren/Spur, 2098 Zylinder, zusammen 1511040 Sektoren
Einheiten = Sektoren von 1 × 512 = 512 Bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Gerät  boot.     Anfang        Ende     Blöcke   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *          63     1511039      755488+  83  Linux

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sudo parted

and then select /dev/sdc > print shows:

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Warnung: /dev/sdc enthält GPT-Signaturen, die anzeigen, dass es eine GPT-Tabelle
hat. Es ist jedoch keine gültige vorgetäuschte MSDOS-Partitionstabelle
vorhanden, die erforderlich wäre. Vielleicht wurde diese zerstört -- eventuell
durch ein Programm, das GPT-Partitionstabellen nicht versteht. Oder vielleicht
haben Sie die GPT-Tabelle gelöscht, und verwenden jetzt eine
MS-DOS-Partitions-Tabelle. Ist dies eine GPT-Partitionstabelle?
Ja/Yes/Nein/No? y                                                         
Modell:  (file)
Festplatte  /dev/sdc:  774MB
Sektorgröße (logisch/physisch): 512B/512B
Partitionstabelle: gpt
Disk Flags: pmbr_boot

Nummer  Anfang  Ende    Größe  Dateisystem  Name     Flags
 1      2163kB  2969kB  806kB               recover  boot

If i reply no to the question if it is a gpt partition table the i get:

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Modell:  (file)
Festplatte  /dev/sdc:  774MB
Sektorgröße (logisch/physisch): 512B/512B
Partitionstabelle: unknown
Disk Flags: 

sudo dmesg | grep usb

shows this:

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[22597.728391] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 8 using ehci-pci
[22597.843649] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=048d, idProduct=1168
[22597.843658] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0
[22597.845013] usb-storage 3-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[22597.845143] scsi12 : usb-storage 3-1:1.0

It is a 16gig mistral made by CnMemory.

[gapan]

Try:

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sudo parted /dev/sdc
mklabel msdos
quit

What does

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sudo fdisk -l

show then?

Oh, and it's generally a good idea to

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export LANG=en_US.utf8

when asking for help online. Not everyone understands german.

[jsfarinet]

Thanks for your patience. Where should i put the command to export in English?

In any case unfortunately the mklabel msdos command did not change anything. In fdisk -l the stick still does not show up. In fdisk /dev/sdc -l it shows up as before, i.e. in very distorted way ...

In gparted it does not show up at all. May be it's an idea to force a copy by using dd. And then, even if the copy went wrong may be i turns back to be formattable???

[gapan]

You can run the export command in the terminal, before you run anything else.

Anyway, you can overwrite the entire stick using dd:

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sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc

That will certainly do it. You will probably have to remove it and replug it to see the changes. You will have to repartition and format it then.

[jsfarinet]

You can run the export command in the terminal, before you run anything else.

Anyway, you can overwrite the entire stick using dd:

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sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc

That will certainly do it. You will probably have to remove it and replug it to see the changes. You will have to repartition and format it then.

That changed something but still i do not see the stick in gparted. I also tried u3-tools but seems they're too old ... (?)

In any case thanks to you for your patience. May be you've another idea (???)

[gapan]

Post the output of

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sudo fdisk -l

now.

And I'm quite sure that running

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sudo cfdisk /dev/sdc

or

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sudo fdisk /dev/sdc

will allow you to partition it from scratch now.

[jsfarinet]

Post the output of

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sudo fdisk -l

now.

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Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 Köpfe, 63 Sektoren/Spur, 60801 Zylinder, zusammen 976773168 Sektoren
Einheiten = Sektoren von 1 × 512 = 512 Bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00073e7b

   Gerät  boot.     Anfang        Ende     Blöcke   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *          63    58589054    29294496   83  Linux
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda2        58589055   960927974   451169460   83  Linux
Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda3       960927975   976773167     7922596+  82  Linux Swap
Partition 3 does not start on physical sector boundary.

And I'm quite sure that running

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sudo cfdisk /dev/sdc

Wenn i do this, eg. i create a primary table, bootable, ecc ecc. *IN* cfdisk the result looks like this:

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 cfdisk (util-linux 2.21.2)

                              Festplatte: /dev/sdc
                       Größe: 3860926464 Bytes, 3860 MB
              Köpfe: 102   Sektoren pro Spur: 24   Zylinder: 3080

    Name        Flags      Part. Typ  Dateisystemtyp   [Bezeichner]  Größe (MB)
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                            Pri/Log   Freier Bereich                       0,04*
    sdc1        Boot        Primäre   W95 FAT32                         3860,90*










     [  Hilfe   ]  [   Neue   ]  [ Ausgabe  ]  [   Ende   ]  [ Einheit. ]
     [ Schreib. ]

but fdisk -l gives the same result as before :clueless:

or

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sudo fdisk /dev/sdc

will allow you to partition it from scratch now.

It seems to work too, but to the same extend as cfdisk.

Note that in any case the given available content of the stick clearly is wrong: it *IS* defintely a 16G stick (and not 4G).

Thunar tries to mount it (and shows a device, but it's not accessable). When i try to eject, i get this error msg, which may says something to you:

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Error ejecting /dev/sdc: Command-line `eject "/dev/sdc"' exited with non-zero exit status 1: eject: tried to use `/dev/sdc' as device name but it is no block device
eject: tried to use `.//dev/sdc' as device name but it is no block device
eject: unable to find or open device for: `/dev/sdc'

Eventually, although i do not think so, is there something i could/should do in "etc/fstab" ?

[maximus]

Eventually, although i do not think so, is there something i could/should do in "etc/fstab" ?

I don't think so either.

After all of this, can you see the stick at all in gparted now? I did come across a USB stick recently that was used as installation media for Ubuntu, and was formatted with GPT partitions. I was able to select the device in the drop-down menu in gparted, then choose Device --> Create Partition Table from the main menu, which removed all details of the existing partitions, and let me then create a single partition which filled the whole drive.

To be honest, I think the advice you've already received should have fixed any problems related to a screwed up filesystem; I would certainly expect zeroing the drive using dd to have done so. Of course I may be wrong, but if you still can't access the drive now then I think you're looking at faulty hardware.