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I've got a 32GB microSD that I'm attempting to format, but Windows won't see it and will lock up if you attempt to view it in any way. So, I decided to open it up using a Ubuntu 20.04 LiveCD and found it had "two" partitions.

The first one (/dev/sdd) is an unallocated 4 MiB. The other 29.72 GB (/dev/sdd1) is a fat32 partition with the lba flag.

I've attempted just about everything I could find that involved Linux, and their results go as follows;

  • Attempting to simply use Disks will show both partitions as being MBR. The latter, when you attempt deleting, editing, or re-formatting, simply reappears. Checking will inform that "Filesystem vfat on Generic MassStorageClass needs repairing." Attempting to repair returns "Error repairing filesystem on /dev/sdd1: Process reported exit code 1: Got 89088 bytes instead of 3894344 at 599040 (udisks-error-quark, 0)".
  • Attempting to use GParted to delete, edit, or re-format /dev/sdd1 will also result in it simply reappearing. This includes when deleting and trying to add your own partition of any type; it returns with an error saying "Can't have overlapping partitions." The specific error provided is given as a result of mkntfs when attempting to create the NTFS filesystem I tried; Failed to access '/dev/sdd2': No such file or directory. The device doesn't exist; did you specify it correctly? Refreshing devices and checking the Disks utility shows that the fat32 /dev/sdd1 partition reappeared mid-way.
  • Running sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd returns;
    dd: writing to '/dev/sdd': Input/output error
    9537+0 records in
    9536+0 records out
    4882432 bytes (4.9 MB, 4.7 MiB) copied, 42.1755 s, 166 kB/s
    

Is there any possible way to format this drive?

1 Answer 1

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No. The card is faulty and can't practically be revived. USB cards are notoriously unreliable, and give up with exactly the symptoms you describe.

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