Bdtyktl

The flash drive is 8GB, but showing it's only showing 8MB in file manager.

When I connect it to my PC, I get a message that I must format the flash drive. When I try to format it, I get another message: "Windows can't format".

If I change the allocation unit size to 8096 or 4096 FAT the flash drive is formatted.

When I browse the flash drive, I just see a file in it. Then when I copy a file in it, it's showing more files there.

• I tried to format the flash drive with GParted in Linux .


• I tried to fix write protected.


• I tried to fix it with generic format tools.


• I tried to fix it with diskpart.

but none of my attempts worked.

These instructions worked for me to reformat an 8GB USB flash drive that was made useless after I used dd to write a bootable iso file to the flash drive. I reformatted the flash drive to its original FAT32 format as follows:

1. Remove all of your USB devices except for the 8GB USB pendrive that you want to reformat, so you won't get confused about the device name of the USB pendrive later on.



2. 
   

   List all the partitions.

   
   
   

   sudo fdisk -l
   
   

   
   
   

   Search the results of the command for output that looks like this:

   
   
   

   Disk /dev/sdc: 7864 MB, 7864320000 bytes
   
   30 heads, 33 sectors/track, 15515 cylinders, total 15360000 sectors
   
   Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
   
   Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   
   I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   
   Disk identifier: 0x00016288
   
   
   
      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
   
   /dev/sdc1   *        2048    15359999     7678976    b  W95 FAT32
   
   

   
   
   

   If you see something like 7864 MB (8GB) in the output (see the example output above), then that is your 8GB USB flash drive. In this example it is called /dev/sdc. Now open the Disks application from the Dash and check again to make sure that the device name of your 8GB pendrive is the same as what you got from running the command: sudo fdisk -l.

   
   


3. 
   

   Create a partition table on the disk of type msdos, sometimes known as Master Boot Record (MBR).

   
   
   

   sudo parted /dev/sdc mklabel msdos
   
   

   
   
   

   In this example I used /dev/sdc for the name of the device which is what was found in the results of step 2. I can't stress strongly enough how important it is to verify the device name before running this step!

   
   
   

   Warning: If you type the wrong device name you may overwrite your operating system or another one of your partitions containing important personal files!!! So be careful and check the device name a second time. Open the Disks application and check the device name of your 8GB USB flash drive in Disks. It should be the same device name!!! Now check again! You don't want to accidentally type the wrong device name!

   
   


4. 
   

   Add an empty "primary" partition, which will hold a FAT filesystem later.

   
   
   

   sudo parted -a none /dev/sdc mkpart primary fat32 0 8192 
   
   

   
   
   

   Once again in this example I used /dev/sdc for the name of the device which is what was found in the results of step 2. The command specifies the start point (from 0 MB) to the end point (8192 MB). If the 8GB USB flash drive does not have the full 8192 MB space, parted will adjust it automatically. If the terminal returns a message that the start point can't start at 0 MB and you have to use some other small number close to 0 MB, type Y to accept this. Note the command is creating a single, primary partition on the whole disk.

   
   
   

   This newly created partition will have the ID /dev/sdc1. That is because the device name in this example is /dev/sdc and the 1 at the end is because it is the first partition on that device.

   
   


5. 
   

   Create a FAT filesystem on the /dev/sdc1 partition by formatting the partition.

   
   
   

   mkfs.vfat -n "8GB-USB" /dev/sdc1
   
   

   
   
   

   /dev/sdc1 is the partition ID from step 4. "8GB-USB" is the partition label, which can be your own choice of label, just enclose the label inside two double quote characters.

   
   

You now have a ready-to-use reformatted USB flash drive with an 8GB FAT partition.