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Low-Level Format For a USB Flash Drive?

Posted by timothy on from the back-from-the-living-dead dept.

Luyseyal writes "I unwittingly bought one of these terrible flash cards at Fry's and have managed to nuke two of them, successively. I have a USB flash card reader that will read/write the current one at USB 1.0 speed, but it locks up every Ubuntu and XP machine I've come across in high-speed access mode. I have read that if I low-level format it that it could be fixed, though my current one doesn't support it. My Google-fu must be weak because I cannot seem to find a USB flash reader that specifies that it will do low-level formatting." Can anyone offer advice for resurrecting such drives?

12 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. How banal... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    The typical ask Slashdot articles of late:

    Dear Slashdot,

    Something brown just fell out of my butt and it smells really bad. What should I do?

  2. Ridiculous by phantomcircuit · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's ridiculous. A-DATA sells crap. Reformatting will not change that.

    1. Re:Ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Try the microwave. That sometimes works.

    2. Re:Ridiculous by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 4, Funny

      You can buy coprolite (fossilized dinosaur shit) at rock shops. Put it in your rock tumbler.

  3. RTFM by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 4, Funny

    Can anyone offer advice for resurrecting such drives?

    Spell: Resurrection
    Level: 7
    Range: Touch
    Duration: Instantaneous

    1. Re:RTFM by Donniedarkness · · Score: 5, Funny

      He said "low-level", which I suppose is what's getting you confused. I know it's subjective, but to be considered "low-leveled" for me, it'd have to be under level 5.

      --
      Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
    2. Re:RTFM by bensode · · Score: 2, Funny

      Low level ... but might bring forth the zombie apocalypse ...

      Animate Dead
      Level: Clr 3, Death 3, Sor/Wiz 4
      Range: Touch
      Targets: One or more corpses touched

      --
      "Keep at least 3-6 full bottles of hard alcohol on hand, a 2 week resignation notice,..." - Poetmatt
  4. Best format tool ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Best format tool for these AData cards is http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/6/Tools/HandTools/Hammers/PRD~0574014P/Stanley%252BFatMax%252BBrick%252BHammer.jsp?locale=en

  5. Haven't done a LLF in a while, but... by Dahan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here's what I used to use for a low-level format:

    A>debug
    g=c800:5

    If you've got a fairly speedy machine, set the interleave to 1:1. Don't forget to input the list of bad blocks so the drive won't try to store data in them. There's some more info in this KB article

    HTH, HAND

  6. Re:The official utility, perhaps? by SEWilco · · Score: 2, Funny

    You missed the point. He has shatty hardware. Best advice is to buy another one.

    Best advice is to buy a bunch of them, plug them into a sufficiently large USB hub, put it in a waterproof box, and configure it as a RAID USB device.

  7. You stole the second one? by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Funny

    I unwittingly bought one of these terrible flash cards at Fry's and have managed to nuke two of them, successively

    You stole the second one?

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  8. Re:A Serious Linux Bug by Dogtanian · · Score: 2, Funny

    man fsck.msdos

    Yeah, I hated that kludgey old OS too...

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