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Using Ubuntu 20.04 on my pc.

After long-formatting (i.e. not quick format), my USB-thumb-drive is detected by neither 'GParted' nor 'Disks'. Furthermore, not detected using the following commands (in Terminal): 'lsblk' and 'sudo fdisk -l'

Very strange - your help would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely Duncan

Duncan
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  • You can analyze the problem according to this link and if you are lucky, make it work correctly again.-- You can start by rebooting the computer, that might be enough to reveal if the USB drive is good or bad. – sudodus Sep 19 '20 at 19:47
  • Thank youvery much. Very useful. I have managed to retrieve the situation such that on rebooting the thumb-drive is detected (and I can use it - e.g. to save files to). However, once I have ejected it it cannot be detected again until I reboot the pc. The same does not apply to a similar thumb-drive - i.e. it can be ejected and again detected on re-insertion. – Duncan Sep 20 '20 at 12:05
  • I'm glad you made progress with the thumb-drive. But I think something is seriously wrong with it. Otherwise it should be possible to re-activate it after you ejected it (without rebooting). -- So I would not rely on it for anything but very temporary usage (for example to carry data files to some other computer or to create USB boot drives for testing or installing new Ubuntu versions). – sudodus Sep 20 '20 at 13:28
  • Thanks - good advice. However, as an academic exercise, I would like to find out exactly what is wrong with it (the thumb-drive) - it was fine before the full-format - so, it would appear to me that something has been wiped off it that has caused the problem - and if this is the case, surely that something (e.g. a bootloader of sorts) can be replaced? – Duncan Sep 21 '20 at 11:04
  • A USB thumb-drive has its own small operating system, that manages wear levelling and the communication with the USB system of the computer. My guess is that something has gone wrong with this small operating system, maybe caused by a delay because some memory cells no longer work, or because the address table (that provides wear levelling when changed) has become too complicated. I think you need information about these details in order to tell what is wrong, and I don't think that information is available to regular users like you and me. – sudodus Sep 21 '20 at 11:20
  • Ah yes - that makes sense. I guess the companies that manufacture these thumb-drives don't make iso-images of the "small operating system" that could be transferred on-to the damaged item (thumb-drive). Thank you for your response - greatly appreciated. – Duncan Sep 21 '20 at 11:22

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