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I have a flash drive which I dd'd a build of Chrome OS onto, and now I cannot format, mount, or boot the drive. I have tried using Disk Utility on:

  • Snow Leopard: (POSIX reports: The operation couldn’t be completed. Cannot allocate memory)

  • and using "Computer Management" on Windows XP (Stops at "Formatting: 100%").

How can I fix this flash drive?

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Please detail what happens (error messages, etc.) when you attempt to format it. – ultrasawblade Jul 6 '11 at 18:48
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In Windows, right click (My) Computer, click Manage and go to Disk Management and see if you can wipe and/or format the drive from there. This solves most problems, but if you're still stuck, leave a comment and I'll see what other options there are. :)

If none of the tools is able to format the drive, it's possible that the drive is just faulty. In that case you're best of just getting a new one.

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That didn't work... it stops at "Formatting: 100%" – jburns20 Jul 6 '11 at 19:09
Try burning a Live CD of GParted and formatting it from there, it's got me out of a few binds in the past: gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php – Ruairi Fullam Jul 6 '11 at 19:13
I actually tried that and it wouldn't boot - AND it could have been the reason I had to reinstall my OS! – jburns20 Jul 6 '11 at 19:19
I think what I'd resort to using would be this: hddguru.com/software/2006.04.12-HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool - after which I'd try to use Disk Management again. Can I just check though, have you tried other USB ports at all? – Ruairi Fullam Jul 6 '11 at 19:28
Yes, I've tried multiple USB ports. I'll try the HDDGuru. – jburns20 Jul 6 '11 at 20:45
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