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Topic: SOLVED - can't reformat esp flagged usb drive

hi every one ,

i reformatted a 4GB usb drive to NTFS , and then by mistake i ticked the esp flag instead of boot ,

so to get out of it , i attempted to reformat the entire thing but i wasn't able ,

whenever i attempt to reformat the drive shuts off and reconnect again ,

so i ended up with a raw unformatted drive ,

tried windows & OSX and all have the same problem , the drive shuts off & reconnect again .

any help is appreciated ,

thanks .

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Re: SOLVED - can't reformat esp flagged usb drive

You might try overwriting the partition table and data on the drive with a command such as:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/path-to-your-usb-device bs=512 count=63

Where /path-to-your-usb-device is something like /dev/sde

WARNING:  Be sure to use the correct device path, otherwise you might wipe out the partition table and data on another disk drive.

3 (edited by sunmooon15 2015-07-20 18:29:11)

Re: SOLVED - can't reformat esp flagged usb drive

gedakc wrote:

You might try overwriting the partition table and data on the drive with a command such as:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/path-to-your-usb-device bs=512 count=63

Where /path-to-your-usb-device is something like /dev/sde

WARNING:  Be sure to use the correct device path, otherwise you might wipe out the partition table and data on another disk drive.

thanks for the reply ,

that's the thing , there is no partition table nor data on the drive , it shows up as an unallocated under gparted ,

whenever i attempt to create a partition table the drive disconnect & reconnect as another drive ( from /dev/sdb to /dev/sde for example ) ,

and when i try the dd command , it works & copy , but the drive is still raw with no filesystem on it ( unallocated ) ,

here is a little screencast demonstrating the problem :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5N4vJ … sp=sharing

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Re: SOLVED - can't reformat esp flagged usb drive

In the video it appears that an input/output error is encountered when applying the msdos partition table to device /dev/sde.

Input/output errors are most often hardware problems.  After the error appears, you can use the dmesg command to see a system log with more details.

The hardware problem could be as simple as a loose cable connection, or more serious such as a failing hard drive.  You might wish to use gsmartcontol to see if there are other indicators of the drive failing.

5 (edited by sunmooon15 2015-07-22 22:00:58)

Re: SOLVED - can't reformat esp flagged usb drive

gedakc wrote:

In the video it appears that an input/output error is encountered when applying the msdos partition table to device /dev/sde.

Input/output errors are most often hardware problems.  After the error appears, you can use the dmesg command to see a system log with more details.

The hardware problem could be as simple as a loose cable connection, or more serious such as a failing hard drive.  You might wish to use gsmartcontol to see if there are other indicators of the drive failing.

here is what appear in dmesg :

[ 5468.947987] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[ 5468.947994] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 5468.952477]  sdb: unknown partition table
[ 5468.954377] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 5480.985675] JFS: nTxBlock = 8192, nTxLock = 65536
[ 5481.005964] SGI XFS with ACLs, security attributes, realtime, no debug enabled
[ 5481.774957]  sdb: unknown partition table
[ 5482.983477]  sdb: unknown partition table
[ 5492.208053]  sdb: unknown partition table
[ 5496.770222] usb 1-2: USB disconnect, device number 11
[ 5496.776535] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 
[ 5496.776540] Result: hostbyte=0x01 driverbyte=0x00
[ 5496.776543] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB:
[ 5496.776545] cdb[0]=0x2a: 2a 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 88 00
[ 5496.776555] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0
[ 5496.776559] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 0
[ 5496.776561] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb
[ 5496.776571] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 1
[ 5496.776574] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb
[ 5496.776578] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 2
[ 5496.776580] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb
[ 5496.776593] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 3
[ 5496.776596] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb
[ 5496.776601] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 4
[ 5496.776604] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb
[ 5496.776610] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 5
[ 5496.776612] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb
[ 5496.776618] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 6
[ 5496.776620] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb
[ 5496.776627] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 7
[ 5496.776630] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb
[ 5496.776635] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 8
[ 5496.776638] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb
[ 5496.776643] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 9
[ 5496.776645] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb
[ 5496.776691] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 
[ 5496.776693] Result: hostbyte=0x01 driverbyte=0x00
[ 5496.776695] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB:
[ 5496.776696] cdb[0]=0x2a: 2a 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 08 00
[ 5496.776704] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 131072

it is a 4 years old usb drive , so it could be failing (dying) ,

windows seem to think it is a read only drive , and try to give me help on read only drives .

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Re: SOLVED - can't reformat esp flagged usb drive

Based on the errors you are seeing, I think the USB drive has reached end-of-life.  It's probably time to retire that particular USB drive and look for a replacement.

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Re: SOLVED - can't reformat esp flagged usb drive

gedakc wrote:

Based on the errors you are seeing, I think the USB drive has reached end-of-life.  It's probably time to retire that particular USB drive and look for a replacement.

thanks a lot for the help gedak

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Re: SOLVED - can't reformat esp flagged usb drive

You are welcome.

To help others searching for answers to similar problems, I edited the initial post and prefixed SOLVED in front of the title.