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TheLizzard
Asked: 2019-11-15 23:33:12 +0800 CST

USB stick not a block device

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I am having problems with my USB stick. From the disks utility I can see its size, model and Serial Number but I can't make a NTFS partition on it. Previously I had another problem with the same USB stick here. How can I fix it?

$ sudo mkfs -t ntfs /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb is not a block device.
Refusing to make a filesystem here!

USB stick info from ubuntu's disks utility

usb-drive gnome-disk-utility

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Wipe the first mibibyte

    First you can wipe the first mibibyte with mkusb. This can remove data, that might confuse the tools, that you want to use later.

    If you run standard Ubuntu live, you need an extra instruction to get the repository Universe. (Kubuntu, Lubuntu ... Xubuntu have the repository Universe activated automatically.)

    sudo add-apt-repository universe  # only for standard Ubuntu

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/ppa  # and press Enter
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mkusb mkusb-nox usb-pack-efi

    Create partition table and file system

    I suggest that you first create a partition table (new GPT or old MSDOS), and then create a partition /dev/sdb1, and then create a file system in the partition.

    • You can do it with command line tools, fdisk or gdisk depending on which partition table you want, and then mkfs

    • You can do it easier with gparted, if you have a graphical desktop environment

      • Device - Create Partition Table ...
      • Partition - New
      • Double-check that things are correct
      • Click on the tick icon to perform the actions

    Final comment

    If the actions above do not work, I think the drive hardware is damaged.

    • 2