Dead USB

[flannob]

Greetings
I'm not sure if this is the right category.
My question is about disk-on-key. SanDisk 32GB usb3
I'm probably doing something wrong but after some writes and deletes it became inaccessible
I have a new letter when I inert it but I cannot see its contents or format it
Can anything be done?
Thank you

[Bwaak]

Flash memory has limited number of rewrites depending on technology. For example, the original Panasonic SLC P2 cards were rated for 10,000 cycles. Then cheaper MLC cards appeared rated for 2,000 cycles. This is why HDDs are still useful for environments with frequent rewrites.

[johns0]

Try it in another computer,if it still is inaccessible then you know the flash drive is gone.

[Subtitles]

Try Isobuster
https://www.isobuster.com/
License is not cheap

[pandy]

Not sure how you are good with Russian but you can try at https://www.usbdev.ru/ - they offer knowledge and if i recall also some limited support for English lang people on their forum - you need find who made main IC on your USB stick and then you need to use IC vendor tools. Not sure if you can recover your files - perhaps not - nowadays USB sticks are very complex SoC with lot of software (firmware) running on controller.

[davexnet]

Take a look at disk management (diskmgmt.msc from the Run box) and see what it says about the partition/drive

[flannob]

I'm far from 10,000 rewrites
tried it on another computer with 4 usb entries
Disk management shows it but I cannot format via disk management
this usb had no firmware upgrade (last version)
SanDisk software if for encrypring only
thank you all
repair programs are indeed my last resort

[johns0]

Your usb is bad,

[davexnet]

I'm far from 10,000 rewrites
tried it on another computer with 4 usb entries
Disk management shows it but I cannot format via disk management
this usb had no firmware upgrade (last version)
SanDisk software if for encrypring only
thank you all
repair programs are indeed my last resort

I thought you were trying to restore the data? If you format it you potentially make things harder for yourself.
Does disk management show a partition type or does it say raw?

Testdisk may help, it can restore the MBR including the partition table once it finds the data and verifies the start and end addresses

[alex]

You could try https://www.hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/ & subsequently use https://www.aomeitech.com/aomei-partition-assistant.html standard edition which is free to create a partition it maybe a long shot but could restore your usb stick to working order?

[lingyi]

I recommend HP USB Disk. It's old, but does a good job of force formatting flash drives and SD cards. https://download.cnet.com/HP-USB-Disk-Storage-Format-Tool/3000-2094_4-10974082.html

Also, it's the nature of flash drives, SSDs and SD cards to fail completely without notice. Which is why others and I don't recommend them for archival use and why you must always have current backups of your files.

[cornemuse]

FWIW:

https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&op=websites

click this one:

https://www-usbdev-ru.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

-c-