1

I'm not able to format my USB as stated here and while following these steps :

sudo su
fdisk -l
df
umount /dev/sdb1
mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1

my bootable USB was changed to Unallocated format and it's current status is:

lsusb |grep 4082:

Bus 001 Device 005: ID 1976:4082 Chipsbrand Microelectronics (HK) Co., Ltd.

lsblk |grep sdb:

sdb      8:16   1   3.7G  0 disk

I have used Gparted, but was not able to fix it.

How should I proceed?

Fabby
  • 35,017
Madhusudhanan
  • 853

2 Answers2

3

It looks like your 4GB USB stick is broken. To ensure no one uses a destructive test and just copy-pastes the stuff without reading the explanation, you have to type the next command all in lower-case.

WARNING Never use the -w option on a device containing an existing file system. This option erases data! If you want to do write-mode testing on an existing file system, use the -n option instead. It is slower, but it will preserve your data.

So to be absolutely sure it's broken (or not) do a:

sudo BadBlocks -w -s -o /tmp/BadBlocks.log /dev/XdY

Where X and Y are s and b

If you get errors while executing the BadBlocks command: the USB stick is irreparably broken. Throw it away and buy a new one.

And if it would give you no errors, you're in luck: just re-format with gparted but create an msdos partition table first.

Sorry to be the very likely harbinger of bad news.

Fabby
  • 35,017
0

Open a terminal, sudo -i to become root.
Run fdisk or parted, delete all partitions, create a new one. Use the fat32 option for type.
Run mksfs -t fat32 /dev/sdb (assuming you haven't moved your USB).
Done.

If that doesn't work, consider providing details as suggested above. Sometimes cat /dev/zero >/dev/sdb will remove corrupted stuff from USB.

Ron
  • 20,938
Mark Williams
  • 2,610