I cannot erase USB flash-drive. Previously it was prepared & used as ubuntu-22 installation disk. Please help. Thanks
 

I cannot erase USB flash-drive. Previously it was prepared & used as ubuntu-22 installation disk. Please help. Thanks

Hello Igor. What have you tried already?

Use gparted to create a new partition table, a new partition and select the desired filesystem.

When flash disk ignores write requests and retains old data it is an indication that it has failed and is giving you the last chance to copy your files.

I have run into the same problem a time or two. I've been using wipefs lately to get rid of the filesystem signatures before I do anything else, especially if I installed from the memory stick.

I'm going to have to try gparted next time. Sounds like a solid suggestion.

I've seen that too.

There are two possibilities. It might be failing but it may just be that its iso formating makes it look like an external optical drive and what could alter that?

Mount it, note the id (e.g. /dev/sdc or whatever), unmount, and use this
Then format it with gparted.

I tried several ways posted on Internet, in particular, using g-parted. Failed.

Terminal printed: Permission denied

If you are trying to use dd as posted above then you need to use sudo

sudo dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=10 of=/dev/sdx

Please verify the correct device ID.

#2
PurpleSquirrel

I tried g-parted

and

https://www.techrepublic.com/article...owing-it-away/

DavidMcCann

I -- not a pro -- tried that way. Failed.

michaelk

Thank you. Especially for the last quotation.

Regretfully, it cannot help to purge my flash-jack.

When a pendrive has been used as an installation image, to return it to normal usage, you need to write a new partition table to it, usually an MBR, (could be a GPT, depending on size), then partition, & add a file system.

michaelk

Terminal answered:
10+0 records in
10+0 records out
10485760 bytes (10 MB, 10 MiB) copied, 0.0065166 s, 1.6 GB/s

So?