how to reset an USB memory stick to factory state

[evanescente_ondine]

Hello.
I have a PNY memory stick whose capacity is 32 gb.
A friend formats it behind my eyes with on Windows whose I don't remember the edition, in FAT,
because that was the only file system that my home DVD reader understand.
My problem is that now, neither linux, nor windows recognizes it as a valid medium anymore. I need to fix it in one way or another. See the result of "dmesg" on my Cinnamon LMDE last version says about it :

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[23999.136055] usb 5-3: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci-pci
[23999.269898] usb 5-3: New USB device found, idVendor=058f, idProduct=1234
[23999.269906] usb 5-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[23999.269911] usb 5-3: Product: Mass Storage Device
[23999.269916] usb 5-3: Manufacturer: Alcor Micro
[23999.495079] usb-storage 5-3:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[23999.495796] scsi4 : usb-storage 5-3:1.0
[23999.496538] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[24000.496986] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Generic  USB Flash Disk   7.76 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[24000.497696] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[24000.500704] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

Right now it's unusable.
And assuming it was correctly formatted in vfat :
$ sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb /media/mehdi
mount: no medium found on /dev/sdb

[niowluka]

You need to mount the partition on the device, i.e. /dev/sdb1.

What does below say?

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sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb

[evanescente_ondine]

it says nothing. fdisk /dev/sdb says that no medium is to be found at /dev/sdb.

[PatH57]

hi,

could you go to accessories then disks and see if the drive is there?

[DrHu]

You will have to attack the disk directly (fdisk, dd, hdparm, gparted options..), and even then you may not get it working for you..
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... 175482217/

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/251781
--may not relate, but if you have another usb flash drive, you could mount that, pull the device and plug in your alcor, see if it detects it as a mount (you won't have written sany data to your other USB so it will be safe to yank..)

Two other questions, drive isn't an encrypted one, and isn't set into any special mode of operation, such as write-protect
--although that should still be mountable

Windows OS side, Alcor itself may have some options here..
http://www.winsite.com/alcor/alcor+micro+usb+drive/

[evanescente_ondine]

Nothing worked at all.
It kept saying whatever the command, "no medium found".
And windows did not recognize it the least no more.

[eanfrid]

Unplug the usb key, wait for a few seconds and then plug it again and post the result of

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lsblk

[evanescente_ondine]

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 149,1G 0 disk
├─sda2 8:2 0 49,4G 0 part /
└─sda3 8:3 0 75,3G 0 part
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom

I bet it means it's not seen...

[PatH57]

well not detected for sure anyway

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lsusb

[niowluka]

So it detects a USB device but cannot create a block device... It would either be the driver, but that's unlikely considering it used to work, and now it doesn't both in Windows and Linux, or the USB itself has died...