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My USB is shown on disk management as "unallocated". I ran:

chkdsk /f /r d:

it told me that my drive is RAW type.

So I tried using diskpart. My volume is shown as unusable so I selected it and entered:

create partition primary

but diskpart returns with an error:

DiskPart has encountered an error: The device is not ready.
See the System Event Log for more information.

I've tried cleaning the drive entirely with:

DISKPART> clean

but it still fails and returns with the same error.

Any help is appreciated.

EDIT: My USB is also an EFI system partition. I just want to clean it and use it as a USB though.

EDIT 2: My USB now shows no media and 0 bytes in Disk Management

Why the Question is not a duplicate: I've tried all the steps listed everywhere I could find to recover my usb drive. The marked question wants to recover their data, I want to recover my usb drive and don't care for my data as there is hardly anything apart from a live linux distro on it.

EDIT 3: The USB in question is a Strontium Ammo 8GB (AUTO Firmware). I've tried the repair tool on the site. Usb is still not working.

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  • 3
    Possible duplicate of USB flash drive not working or is appearing as an empty disk drive, Disk Management reports "No Media" with 0 bytes size
    – fixer1234
    Commented Dec 13, 2018 at 1:11
  • I've added why the question is not a duplicate
    – Grimlock
    Commented Dec 14, 2018 at 23:50
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    Unfortunately, the considerations mentioned in the recent edit don't affect the fact that it's a duplicate. The underlying problem is that the drive has failed. The linked thread includes some things that sometimes work to allow recovering data before the drive is completely dead, which is the best you can hope for. But they don't always work, and the drive itself, can't be made usable again. Flash drives have unreliable service lives are basically disposable when they die. That's why it's important to have a backup. At least you didn't lose critical stuff, so count yourself lucky.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Dec 15, 2018 at 0:54

2 Answers 2

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As others have noted, the root problem here is that your USB drive is dead.

There is nothing practical that can be done to repair the drive. The correct course of action is to give it a good funeral and a peaceful sleep.

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  • you're probably right
    – Grimlock
    Commented Dec 23, 2018 at 0:39
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Sounds like this USB was a Live USB for an operating system or something similar. I would like to know if there are any listed partitions in this USB in Disk Manager. However, you can try this...

If there are in fact any listed partitions for this USB in Disk Manager, delete them.

If that doesn't work, try adding a partition to this USB via Disk Manager and format it as NTFS or exFAT or something like that. Then when it's created, expand the partition to take up the entire USB, and format it. Sort of like tricking it...

Then if this doesn't work, download a linux Live USB tool. No, don't boot linux Live USB. Instead, use this tool to format the USB drive.

I have been in a situation similar to this before. I wrote Linux to a flash drive, and the only device that Windows could see was the 800kb sector that wasn't written to it. I forgot exactly how I erased it, but it was something similar the steps above.

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  • It was a live usb for Bunsenlabs. How do I use the Linux Live USB tool to reformat only (I have rufus)?
    – Grimlock
    Commented Dec 14, 2018 at 23:34
  • Grimlock, I am working on a solution for you. It sounds like basically the live usb in a way took the drive hostage- in a way. I have a similar situation as yours and I am working on fixing mine right now. I'll let you know when I found the solution.
    – KALI99
    Commented Dec 15, 2018 at 2:58
  • I used your solution Grimlock and it worked for me. I selected my SD card in diskpart by typing "select disk 1" (disk 1 was my SD card) and when it said it was selected I typed "clean". It worked and my SD card in Disk Management was one big unallocated space. I right-clicked it, and was able to set up a "New Simple Volume". I reclaimed the space on the SD card by making the whole SD card one big partition in FAT32. Retry it with your method, you might have made a mistake in the command prompt. If you did do it right. Then fixer1234 might be right.
    – KALI99
    Commented Dec 15, 2018 at 3:33
  • my problem is that the 'clean' command returns with an error though
    – Grimlock
    Commented Dec 16, 2018 at 5:23

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