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My USB was corrupted when I tried to format it on windows to put a bootable Ubuntu on it.

I tried to format it on Windows it failed. I tried on Ubuntu with disk utility but it failed, so I tried with GParted. It said there was no partition table, and failed to create it because the media was not found. The usb was on /dev/sdb but everytime I tried to write to it, it would fail and disappear fom /dev/sdb.

I tried to clean it with dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb but now I can't find it with lsblk or GParted.

I can still find it with disk utility, there is a Drive on /dev/sdb but under volume it says "No media"

I can find it with ls /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Specific_STORAGE_DEVICE-0\:0.

However I can't format it, I tried sudo fdisk /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Specific_STORAGE_DEVICE-0\:0 but it says

fdisk: cannot open /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Specific_STORAGE_DEVICE-0:0: No medium found

How can I fix that USB and format it correctly ?

Mickael B.
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    Does `eject -t /dev/sdb` help? If not, see https://superuser.com/a/1054340 – Tom Yan Jun 26 '21 at 16:21
  • @TomYan no when I try that or `eject -t /dev/disk/by-id/usb-Specific_STORAGE_DEVICE-0\:0` both commands say `eject: unable to open `/dev/sdb'`. There is no SD card inside. So yes it's dead, that's what I'm trying to fix. the memory is corrupted, I want to force write to put a partition table in it so I can read it again. (the hardware is not broken it works well, the led lit up when plugged and the computer detect the peripheric, it just can't read it I guess. – Mickael B. Jun 26 '21 at 16:44
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    AFAIK, there's no way to read/write a single block if you can't even reach the "medium". (At least not with the usual way on a PC.) – Tom Yan Jun 26 '21 at 16:46
  • You'll need Windows or macOS for it, but does [SD Memory Card Formatter](https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/) help? – Andrew Morton Jun 26 '21 at 17:29
  • @AndrewMorton no SD Memory Card Formatter doesn't help. On windows the partition tool finds the media `D:` but it says there is no media and I can't format it. I tried to follow what's on www.usbdev.ru, I installed [ChipGenius](https://www.usbdev.ru/files/chipgenius/) to flash drive information but I couldn't find any firmware tool from that vendor to fix the flash drive. I got `VID = 26BF PID = 203A` and `Controller Vendor: BR Controller Part-Number: C203A`. Why is it so hard to just have a generic tool that force write on a USB stick – Mickael B. Jun 26 '21 at 19:52
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    @MickaelB. It could be that the device is beyond economical repair. You were formatting it anyway, so it isn't as if there was anything valuable on it that you wanted to keep, so perhaps it is time to incinerate/macerate it (in case there is any data you don't want recovered ever, like passwords) and buy a new one. – Andrew Morton Jun 26 '21 at 20:04
  • It's not about economic repear or recovery, I just want to fix it. You don't throw a computer whenever a program bugs... – Mickael B. Jun 28 '21 at 16:44

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