USB drive inaccessible by any means

dorruk · 26 Jan 2013

HAVOC said:

See if you can right click the small area where it says "Disk 2" (not in the partition area) and see if you have a menu.

That's where I right clicked. The partition area does not respond to right clicks at all.
Only drive letters are changeable, you see...

Also there's the properties window which claims that "This device is working properly".

dorruk · 26 Jan 2013

I am now thinking that the problem is with the MBR. The MBR may be corrupt so the flash drive would show up 0 bytes and 0 partitions.

So my new question would be:
How do I rewrite the MBR manually for my flash drive without TestDisk? Because TestDisk does not recognize a drive without partitions...

ICIT2LOL · 26 Jan 2013

dorruk said:

HAVOC said:

See if you can right click the small area where it says "Disk 2" (not in the partition area) and see if you have a menu.

That's where I right clicked. The partition area does not respond to right clicks at all.
Only drive letters are changeable, you see...

Also there's the properties window which claims that "This device is working properly".

Did anything come up in properties in that drive window?

dorruk · 27 Jan 2013

Nothing that is extraordinary. Device is working properly, serial number and other values regarding to drive is readable...

ICIT2LOL · 27 Jan 2013

Ok lets try a different tack download and run this app Dorruk

Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition. it is free and a very handy tool to use at any time so keep it mate.

Once in and it is up and running - see my pic where I indicated you right click and you will get a drop down window with options lets see what it says first in properties. If that is ok then let us know what else is in options that is not greyed out - if any.

dorruk · 02 Feb 2013

Sorry that I couldn't access the Internet for a while.

Thing is, my drive is not listed.

ICIT2LOL · 02 Feb 2013

Another thing you can do is -
Make a bootable Ubuntu disk - set the BIOS to boot from optical > insert the Ubuntu disk > save settings and exit > it will then boot into Ubuntu. Use the TRY option NOT the install and all drives connected to the machine will be there for you to open out. If it is not listed here then it looks rather like the drive is bad somehow.

Download Ubuntu | Ubuntu < you need a DVD for this. Once the OS is running (it will not interfere with your Windows OS as it is running from the disk) look for the drives - see my pic.
You can also access the net via the Firefox feature too if need be.

jumanji · 02 Feb 2013

Hi dorruk,

Try this: How I got my corrupt usb drive working again « Techno Digits

dorruk · 03 Feb 2013

jumanji said:

Hi dorruk,

Try this: How I got my corrupt usb drive working again « Techno Digits

Disk Management won't display any partitions on the drive so any solution that is tied to Disk Management doesn't work..

ICit2lol said:

Another thing you can do is -
Make a bootable Ubuntu disk - set the BIOS to boot from optical > insert the Ubuntu disk > save settings and exit > it will then boot into Ubuntu. Use the TRY option NOT the install and all drives connected to the machine will be there for you to open out. If it is not listed here then it looks rather like the drive is bad somehow.

Download Ubuntu | Ubuntu < you need a DVD for this. Once the OS is running (it will not interfere with your Windows OS as it is running from the disk) look for the drives - see my pic.
You can also access the net via the Firefox feature too if need be.

I don't have any blank DVDs around. I could make a bootable USB of Ubuntu but the only 8GB thumb drive I own is corrupt, as you know..

Fortunately, I found a 5-year-old 256 MB thumb drive digging around the house. Just installed "GParted Live" on it. It's a Linux distro with only Testdisk and GParted in it. I will check it out, and soon will post results.

dorruk · 03 Feb 2013

GParted does not recognize the drive either.
sda is internal HDD,
sdb is external HDD storage,
sdc is the 256MB drive that GParted Live is running on.

There's no 8 GB drive listed...