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I want to format my USB drive. In terminal, I use the following commands:

umount /dev/sdb1
mkfs.vfat -I -n "New Volume" "/dev/sdb1"

But I could not. It shows me following error: 

mkfs.vfat 3.0.12 (29 Oct 2011) 
/dev/sdb1: Permission denied

Somebody helps me, please. Thank you in advanced.

Ps: When I add sudo before the above commands, it works. But nothing changes. My old files and folders still remain. Gparted also does not work. It shows me the following error:

enter image description here

When I try to format by Disk Utility, it shows me the following error: Error formatting volume Error creating file system: helper exited with exit code 1: Error calling fsync(2) on /dev/sdb1: Input/output error

Truong
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  • Did you run above commands with sudo or without sudo? – d a i s y Feb 29 '16 at 03:56
  • I have updated the instructions – mchid Feb 29 '16 at 04:33
  • In order to see the "details" you have to expand the menu for format. – mchid Feb 29 '16 at 04:41
  • It shows nothing. – Truong Feb 29 '16 at 04:41
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    I edited the picture. – Truong Feb 29 '16 at 04:53
  • It looks like a dead drive possibly, here is a similar post https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?topic=24421.0 – mchid Feb 29 '16 at 05:01
  • One last thing you can try. Open startup disk creator and select the usb device and click to delete the data on the device. I have had devices locked after using dd and this was the only thing that worked. See here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/565493/usb-disk-stuck-in-read-only-after-dd-an-iso – mchid Feb 29 '16 at 05:07
  • It shows me the following error: org.freedesktop.UDisks.Error.Failed: Error creating partition table: helper exited with exit code 1: Error calling fsync(2) on /dev/sdb: Input/output error – Truong Feb 29 '16 at 05:12
  • @chuyenvien94 In deference to mchid here, the issue is hardware failure. Your drive while being readable is near death. As my answer states. Replace the drive and try and copy what data you can off of the current drive to try and save your data. – Thomas Ward Feb 29 '16 at 05:14

1 Answers1

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That Input/Output error message suggests there are hardware problems (not viruses as your comments that exist on a now-deleted answer say you think is the case).

You say in those now-deleted comments that Windows also says it can't write to the drive. This further suggests a hardware issue with the USB drive specifically.

It is almost a guarantee that this is a hardware issue, since every attempt to edit the file system (based on your comments) on any operating system results in that error or similar.

I would surmise that your USB drive is no longer functional as a usable USB stick and likely will end up not functioning at all soon enough; I would back up any data you wish to keep and replace the drive as soon as possible to prevent data loss.

Thomas Ward
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