Cannot reformat USB Flash drive.(SOLVED)

[bicky]

I have been using a 2gb USB Flash drive for many months - I decided to reformat this drive to clean it up.
I have tried everything I know but cannot get a reformat. The drive is no longer recognised by my computer. GParted recognises the drive as dev/sdg , but will not carry out any operations. I have tried using " Disk Utility" the error message -"Error creating file system: helper exited with exit code 1: Error calling fsync(2) on /dev/sdg: Input/output error"
appears.
Is there a solution - or is the drive scrapped ?

[Beardedragon]

I have been using a 2gb USB Flash drive for many months - I decided to reformat this drive to clean it up.
I have tried everything I know but cannot get a reformat. The drive is no longer recognised by my computer. GParted recognizes the drive as dev/sdb , but will not carry out any operations. I have tried using " Disk Utility" the error message -"Error creating file system: helper exited with exit code 1: Error calling fsync(2) on /dev/sdb: Input/output error"
appears.
Is there a solution - or is the drive scrapped ?

First of all you do not say which format you are trying to use. Most USB flash drives will not take anything other than FAT 16 or 32. This is compatible with Microsoft Windows, Apple Systems and Linux. Here is a how-to:
http://www.dotkam.com/2008/07/10/restor ... ash-drive/

[cwsnyder]

Also, is Gparted asking for your password before showing the screen where you pick the drive to work on? You can only reformat a drive as root, and only a drive which is not mounted.

[bicky]

Thanks for this - ALL O.K. up to the Mount & flashka bit - error as below:-
$ sudo mount /dev/sdf1 /mnt/flashka/
mount: mount point /mnt/flashka/ does not exist.

I can mount the USB drive, I can open and view, but cannot save any files to the USB.

My GParted info is :-
Partition. /dev/sdf1 ( Key Logo alongside )
File System. FAT16
Size1.95GB
Path/dev/sdf1
Status Mounted on Media /4BF5-52CD
UUID 4BF5-52CD
First Sector 2048
Last sector 4085759
Any more ideas ? - I feel we must be 99% there !

[Beardedragon]

Should not have a problem with permissions. Open in your favorite File Manager then drag and drop data into the window.

[batsdude]

I have a similar issue on two different machines. Originally I could copy pretty much any file to my usb flash (fat32), but during one of the updates I ran, not sure which, I could no longer copy ANYTHING to my flash on either machine. I do understand the various answers, IE: bad usb slot; bad flash, etc, but it used to work on BOTH machines, and now I can't copy from either. I also CAN copy FROM (UGH) win7 to linux on my dual boot (win 7/linux mint 13) machine, but NOT vice versa. I've tried about everything, including other format types on several flash chips. It absolutely cannot be that they are ALL bad, just as it cannot be that 9 different usb ports on two different PC's could be bad. There was/is a bug somewhere in one of the Lord knows how many updates that Linux Mint has installed that made it all go to hell in a bucket. There isn't any other possible explanation. The only thing I can think of is a reinstall on both machines, and then, as tedious as it may be, to do all the 200+ updates one at a time. This, however is ridiculously impractical, and I certainly am not going thru all the formatting issues I had to plod thru to get the dual boot installed in the first place. Odd how Linux Mint 13 WILL copy files (music, AVI, text, etc) FROM Win 7, but not vice-versa! You may blame hardware all you like, but that cannot be it on two different units!

[mrghostwalker]

Similar problem with Mint14. It will not let me format or write to flash drives. Tells me they are read only but does not give me the option to change it.