Invalid media or Track 0 bad - disk unusable


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Hello!

 

Recently, 2 of my previously working pendrives died in my hands. I wanted to make a BOOT install USB, where I formated the drive but in the end, windows sad: not completed succesfully.

 

Did it die for good without any reason? Is this in any connection with the "USB Virus" that I read about a couple of weeks back?

 

If so - I'm really worried now to insert any of my other drives, I don't want them to die like these 2.

 

Btw. I used Windows Format, and made the image with Rufus. Where there is a chance to check for error's, and both drives failed around 50%.

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

PS: Shall I try to format it under linux, using ext?! Would that work by any chance?!

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Open command prompt as administrator and execute diskpart.

 

To list disks:

list disk

To select the disk, use the select command. Once you've selected the right drive, use the clean command.

You can also use the tool to create partitions and format the partitions. Remember to use the quick option when you format solid state devices.

 

If diskpart can't do anything then the drive is dead. It's often the easiest way to recover from corrupted partitions by cleaning out all the partitions and start from scratch. Rufus and similar programs screw the partition table up  (conforming to standards but WIndows doesn't understand the gibberish of foreign filesystems), making partitions unreadable by Windows' standard tools.

The drive letter that is assigned when plugged in is assigned to partitions and not the drive itself. I've run into similar problems when I've screwed around with Linux and BSD on pendrives and I've always solved it by using diskpart's clean command. You can remove the drive letter too by unmounting it in diskpart.

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