Is this a "bin-it" job ......

[#1]

.......Or.... Can it be recovered ?  ( Running Linux Mint 21.2 Fully updated)

I have a 16GB Mini USB stick.. which had some stuff on it... that I did not need any longer so I used the "Disks" function to "Erase" and "Format" the stick.

Running time was estimated at over 3.5 hours.. - no problem... got all day !.

After about 30 mins... it reported a "problem with formatting" or similar.... so I shut it down. Then I tried to format it with the USB Stick Formatter.....

In the above "composite"... on the left side, under Devices... it does not show.

Using a terminal instruction   " lsusb "   it shows as Bus 001 Device 030   ID  ffff  1201

( confirmed by removing it and the above not showing on repeat of lsusb)

Opening "Disks" from the menu   it shows as NAND USB2DISK    and in the right hand pane as /dev/sdc  With "no media" in the main area.

Terminal instruction  " lsblk " also shows it as    sdc 8:32  1  0B  0 disk

GParted does not recognise it, or show it .

It`s probably "borked" ...but before I chuck it in the bin... just wondered if anyone can see a way of formatting it, to reuse.

Thanks

[#2]

Assuming it still appears as /dev/sdc

Try erasing everything on the flash drive using this at a command prompt -

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc bs=1M count=1

That will write zeros to every location on the device, removing all formatting and data.

The command will probably end with an error message, as it will try and keep writing zeros past the end of the disk space, which will report an error and will eventually return to the command prompt.

You probably want to restart the PC with the wiped flash drive still attached, and then use 'Disks' to format as needed.

[#3]

@Anonymous 

Thanks for the terminal..... here is the result ....

[#4]

I don't know then !

That command usually recovers my flash drives that 'Disks' has failed to format correctly.

[#5]

@Anonymous  OK... it`s certainly a bit weird... cos it doesn`t show in some parts but in others , it does, and  the /dev/sdc bit on the Disks section is the only place it gets a "drive name" for the disk

Tried to find instructions "on line" and one of them suggested to "unmount" the drive using  sudo umount /dev/sdc  

on the terminal it gives this result.

gerry@gerry-GL752VW:~$ sudo unmount /dev/sdc
[sudo] password for gerry:          
sudo: unmount: command not found
gerry@gerry-GL752VW:~$

[#6]

Apologies for stating the obvious, but looking at your post you've missed typed the umount command.  You'll need to drop the first "n".

It should look like this:

sudo umount /dev/sdc

That should unmount the drive.  (I have no idea why the the first "n" is dropped in the command.)

[#7]

@DirtyDean68  OK.... just done this..

gerry@gerry-GL752VW:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 476.9G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 512M 0 part /boot/efi
└─sda2 8:2 0 476.4G 0 part /
sdb 8:16 1 0B 0 disk
sdc 8:32 1 0B 0 disk
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom

gerry@gerry-GL752VW:~$ sudo umount /dev/sdc
[sudo] password for gerry:

umount: /dev/sdc: not mounted.

removed and inserted the usb stick

then did  this ...

gerry@gerry-GL752VW:~$ sudo lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 476.9G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 512M 0 part /boot/efi
└─sda2 8:2 0 476.4G 0 part /
sdb 8:16 1 0B 0 disk
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
gerry@gerry-GL752VW:~$

as you can see  sdc is no longer showing !...

However... going to Disks.... it does pop up again...as mentioned before as

Drive

NAND USB2DISK       but showing " No Volume " in the panel on the right.

lsusb gives similar result to the one shown above.. ( ID  ffff:1201  )

lsblk also brings back sdc  into the drive listings.

Should I "umount" sdc again... and then reboot with it plugged in?

[#8]

The Disks app will detect and mount it again.  You can unmount the drive by clicking in the power button as per the screen shot below.

Running lsusb should have at least given you the manufacturer and model names and codes of the USB stick. It is possible the USB stick's onboard firmware is not reporting that back, which indicates it may have become corrupted.

If you are still getting it listed as "ID  ffff:1201"  using lsusb and you're unable to format it with Disks, Gparted, etc., in my opinion you should cut your losses and junk the USB stick unfortunately. ☹️

[#9]

@shutter 

Have you tried using something like GParted on the drive. I think you can load it on your machine so long as you're not working on the Boot disk. Otherwise ypou boot it from a USB stick.

https://gparted.org/index.php

Brian

[#10]

@DirtyDean68  Yeah. I think that giving it the heave-ho into the bin is the solution here...  Not worth spending any more time on it, really

@bmc   Yes I have tried GParted... as inidcated on my "composite" pic at the start of the thread. 

So off to lanfill it goes.

Thanks to all for your interest and input.

Off to Ebay and find another ! ! ! .

Have a good evening all.