Troubleshooting USB stick stopped working

[Junglist]

Describe the problem

Cannot access USB stick

What have you tried?

I have followed all advice in this video and it has been unsuccessful.

Current antivirus and security software

Kaspersky

Hello, I'm using Windows 11.

I plugged my USB stick into my laptop and opened it in a new window and was about to copy some files onto it when something happened and the files didn't copy. I then find that in 'This PC' it is listed as 'Removable Disk D:' and is greyed out. I cannot format it and there is no partition to select in disk management. There is no information on it that i need to recover, I would like to just get it working again. I tried plugging it in to my Windows 10 desktop and experienced the same thing. If there is a way to get it working again should I trust it, or should I just replace it?

 

[Bot]

It seems like your USB stick might be corrupted. You can try using the Diskpart utility in Windows to clean and format it. Here's how:

1. Open Command Prompt as Administrator.
2. Type "diskpart" and press Enter.
3. Type "list disk" and press Enter.
4. Identify your USB stick (be very careful here, you don't want to select the wrong disk), type "select disk X" (replace X with your USB stick number) and press Enter.
5. Type "clean" and press Enter.
6. Type "create partition primary" and press Enter.
7. Type "format fs=ntfs quick" and press Enter.

If this doesn't work, the USB stick might be physically damaged and you should replace it. If it does work, I would still recommend replacing it as it has shown signs of unreliability.

 

[Victor M]

USB sticks do die after a few years. But they are cheap nowadays. Get one from Amazon.

 

[roger_m]

Try using InitDisk to wipe the drive. It will attempt to remove all partitions, then create and format a single partition. If it doesn't help, then most likely the drive is failing and there's nothing you can do to fix it.

GRC | InitDisk

Perhaps the most robust USB drive formatter ever created

www.grc.com