Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


How to revive a "no medium found" usb drive?
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

How to revive a "no medium found" usb drive?

GM2015GM2015 Member
edited November 2015 in Help

I bought a Chinese 32gb usb drive from ebay about 1-2 weeks ago and now it seems the usb drive is bricked somehow.

I've formatted the drive gnome-disk-util, then created a fat32 partition on it. After mounting with gui the drive, a bunch of non-sense files were on it taking up space. When I tried to delete them, I've got errors saying the drive was mounted read-only.

After that, I've tried to reformat and repartition the drive again, only to find today the drive cannot be even formatted any longer.

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd bs=4M conv=sync,notrunc
dd: failed to open ‘/dev/sdd’: No medium found

Gparted doesn't show the drive, gnome disk shows its location as /dev/sdd. sudo mount gives the same

no medium found

error.

I tried

sudo mkfs.vfat -I /dev/sdd
mkfs.fat 3.0.27 (2014-11-12)
/dev/sdd: No medium found

and

sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdd
mkfs.fat 3.0.27 (2014-11-12)
/dev/sdd: No medium found

none of these work either.

edit:
I've given earlier fdisk a try, but:

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.25.2).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.

fdisk: cannot open /dev/sdd: No medium found

I'm still googling around but none of their commands do anything.

I tried plugging this into my raspberry pi, but then it doesn't listen to vnc or ssh. No idea why.

edit2:
dmesg output after depluggins and repluggins the drive:

[132594.092572] usb 8-1.4.4: USB disconnect, device number 13
[132618.100086] usb 8-1.4.4: new high-speed USB device number 14 using ehci-pci
[132618.209949] usb 8-1.4.4: New USB device found, idVendor=058f, idProduct=1234
[132618.209954] usb 8-1.4.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[132618.209956] usb 8-1.4.4: Product: Mass Storage Device
[132618.209958] usb 8-1.4.4: Manufacturer: Alcor Micro
[132618.210558] usb-storage 8-1.4.4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[132618.215793] scsi13 : usb-storage 8-1.4.4:1.0
[132619.212848] scsi 13:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Generic  USB Flash Disk   7.76 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[132619.214667] sd 13:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
[132619.219593] sd 13:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk

Comments

  • I had this error before, just bin it or ask to return it

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • GM2015 said: I bought a Chinese 32gb usb drive from ebay about 1-2 weeks ago

    more like 2GB lol, use mymemory in future.

    Thanked by 3tehdan ATHK netomx
  • GM2015GM2015 Member
    edited November 2015

    It really had 30-32GB storage before I reformatted and got gibberish after first repartioning post-formatting.

    Yeah, I believe I saved your link to ebay. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MyMemory-128GB-USB-3-0-Flash-Drive-Memory-Stick-Pen-Thumb-Red-/291442446921

    I will ask for another usb drive or leave a negative feedback.

    TarZZ92 said: more like 2GB lol, use mymemory in future.

  • Try "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd" without any extra options as a last resort, it will be very slow but might work.

  • I've replugged it and it's now on /dev/sdg, but I got the same error.

    sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdg
    dd: failed to open ‘/dev/sdg’: No medium found
    

    linuxthefish said: Try "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd" without any extra options as a last resort, it will be very slow but might work.

  • If,you have another computer, try to plug it. For example, a windows pc.

    Last,try to put it in a referigerator for a minutes, put it inside a plastic. And try again,will it work?

  • GM2015GM2015 Member
    edited November 2015

    No disrespect, but why in a fridge or a plastic bag?

    There was a reddit thread where a similar joke(as in using some food and stuff like that as well) was suggested for a very similar error.

    ErawanArifNugroho said: try to put it in a referigerator for a minutes, put it inside a plastic

  • GM2015 said: No disrespect, but why in a fridge or a plastic bag?

    You can also bake it like an Xbox360 - Both methods work against soldering problems.

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • GM2015GM2015 Member
    edited November 2015

    Plugged it into win7 VM after realizing I had to add myself to the vboxusers group and log in again ...

    Still, it doesn't show up in My Computer, but it's on F:/ so I'll find some windows magical instrument to have fun with the drive.

    I've been playing with http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/badusb?PageSpeed=noscript, but disk part throws up errors for both CLEAN and ONLINE DISK.

    ErawanArifNugroho said: another computer, try to plug it

    Thanked by 1ErawanArifNugroho
  • it's clearly broken...

  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider

    GM2015 said: It really had 30-32GB storage before I reformatted and got gibberish after first repartioning post-formatting.

    How did you test? Cheap flashdrives will often pretend to have a certain size, but simply loop or discard your data. This is a good tool for testing.

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • rincewindrincewind Member
    edited November 2015

    If you have no plans on returning the drive, try low-level formatting.

    Freezing really does work. I tried it a long time back when the drive head was scratching against the magnetic platter on my HDD and was able to copy out a few files.

  • emgemg Veteran

    Excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but if you manage to revive the drive, what data would you trust to store on it?

    Thanked by 1tehdan
  • Thanked by 1ATHK
  • @howardsl2 said:

    That's an oldie, but still epic.

    I ordered a few chips a few years back every single one of them ended up being 1GB instead of the advertised 32GB..

    That's what I get for cheaping out though.

  • in all seriousness would kind of idiot would buy a 32GB flash drive from ebay from china? 99% it's gonna be a fake which wont last very long at all.

    Thanked by 1tehdan
  • @rincewind said:
    If you have no plans on returning the drive, try low-level formatting.

    Freezing really does work. I tried it a long time back when the drive head was scratching against the magnetic platter on my HDD and was able to copy out a few files.

    Umm.. You do know There are no mechanical parts in a flash drive, right?

    Doing anything other than binning this obviously fake device is a massive waste of time. You might just get a refund from eBay seller if you jump up and down hard enough.

  • how much did you pay for it?

  • Chuck it.

    Flash drives are designed to fail as read only. It's a safety feature and I think it's a good one. It's better for it to allow you to only get your files off than to allow you to screw it up even more.

    I too spent a couple of hours trying to reformat and so on because I refused to believe the obvious.

  • tehdan said: There are no mechanical parts in a flash drive

    What? When did this happen :o

    I assume the OP already knows what he signed up for when he got a cheap USB drive. Returning the drive is usually meaningless because of the shipping costs involved.

    So, either recover what's in there - or get the USB drive to indicate its true capacity which is likely a lot less than 32G by a destructive low level format - voiding your warranty.

  • GM2015GM2015 Member
    edited November 2015

    I can't even stat what's in the drive anymore. I can't mount, format, reformat or repartition it. Nothing I tried can open it.

    I contacted the seller and they kindly offered a refund. Not sure if they want the drive returned because it's useless as it is now.

    I answered that I accept the refund and wait for his response/next action.

    I don't buy from ebay that often so this is my first refund/return scenario.

    rincewind said: So, either recover what's in there - or get the USB drive to indicate its true capacity which is likely a lot less than 32G by a destructive low level format - voiding your warranty.

    Yes, good assumption because I bought a 32GB sandisk drive(I already a working one from some years ago of the same 32GB model) for double the price and wanted to compare the Chinese 32GB drive.

    Still, we're not talking about a huge loss, but it's still unpleasant.

    rincewind said: I assume the OP already knows what he signed up for when he got a cheap USB drive. Returning the drive is usually meaningless because of the shipping costs involved.

  • WilliamWilliam Member
    edited November 2015

    rincewind said: voiding your warranty.

    >warranty

    >chinese fake USB stick

    I have bad new for you....

  • rincewindrincewind Member
    edited November 2015

    Lol. True.

    But you shouldn't try a low-level format without knowing the risks.

    EDIT:
    @GM2015: From your dmesg, the USB controller still works, and you had stored close to full-capacity at some point. So something works, but was tweaked to an unsustainable capacity. You may still be able to scrape something from it - more as a fun project.

Sign In or Register to comment.