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I formatted a live USB under windows, but it got completely bricked. It shows up in Disks as having a 478MB efi partition containing archiso(files are recognized, but I doubt they are intact) and 15GB unallocated space. Windows is unable to do anything with it past recognizing it's existence.It shows up ind disks as having MBR partitioning. Is there a way to help this? Here is what i tried so far:

  • A multitude of USB tools under windows. They universally can't see it, but it shows up under devices and dkismgmt.
  • Quick Formatting it with gnome disks. It threw a partition does not exist error.

  • Same error when I tried to delete the partition, or change it's type.

EDIT:

  • tried to zero and format the drive, it didn1t work but formatting of the previous efi section magically changed to FAT and I was able to delete the partition.

Status: The drive is now all free space, but I still can't format/create partitions on it.

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    Try to create a new Partition Table using fdisk(8). Run: # fdisk /dev/sdx. After that type o and then create a partition with n. If the program produce any error output, post it here
    – leorize
    Jul 22, 2015 at 16:00

2 Answers 2

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Check out this Arch Wiki's article


After you install Arch Linux and you are done with the USB drive, you should zero out its first 512 bytes (meaning the boot code from the MBR and the non-standard partition table) if you want to restore it to full capacity:

# dd count=1 bs=512 if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx && sync

Then create a new partition table (e.g. "msdos") and filesystem (e.g. EXT4, FAT32) using gparted, or from a terminal

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  • I formatted the drive once and used it as normal prior to this mishappen format after using it as an Arch disk. The Archiso should have went away. Jul 22, 2015 at 15:56
  • What partition table should I pick for smooth operation(including zero and format) on both Ubuntu and Win? Jul 22, 2015 at 16:13
  • Both gpt and msdos work. Choose whatever you like. I recommend msdos since you are working with an USB
    – leorize
    Jul 22, 2015 at 16:14
  • Thanks for the help I've been able to recover it. I selected msdos /ntfs one partition. Works fine on 'buntu, but still only kinda sorta under Windows. It is recognized can be read and written,but it doesn't show up under systray icon and the little icon becomes unresponsive and remains even after ejecting it and all other devices. Jul 22, 2015 at 16:23
  • It says dd: error writing '/dev/sdd': No space left on device Jan 30, 2018 at 12:30
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If all you want to do is bring the flash drive back to a usable state try using GParted and just make a new partition table then make a new partition on the drive in FAT, NTFS, EXT4, etc. Just keep in mind that all the data on the drive will be cleared in doing this.

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