USB Functional Restore - Help Requested and Apprecaited!

[Sarahachi]

Hi all, I gave the forum and tutorials a good read through and am still struggling with trying to restore functionality of my Lexar 128GB USB Flash drive. I am hoping to learn and would appreciate any help.

Issue: My USB flash drive (formatted to NTFS) appears to be corrupted - it is recognized by windows and readable, however files cannot be deleted or added, and drive cannot be formatted by Windows (I tried both Disk Management, diskpart, and GParted). Whenever any changes like deleting files or formatting is applied, it either fails or shows operation complete, but nothing changes. Diskpart didn't list my USB disk.

Objective: I don't need any of the files, no data recovery necessary. I would just like to restore functionality of this USB drive so I can use it again for school

Things I've Tried:

I ran a chkdsk and chkdsk /f and got "An unspecified error occurred"

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C:\Documents and Settings\Sarah>chkdsk d:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Lexar.

WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
Security descriptor verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
Correcting errors in the uppercase file.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows found problems with the file system.
Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct these.

 122879775 KB total disk space.
  59237212 KB in 98 files.
        64 KB in 20 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
     70991 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
  63571508 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
  30719943 total allocation units on disk.
  15892877 allocation units available on disk.

C:\Documents and Settings\L>chkdsk d: /f
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Lexar.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
An unspecified error occurred.

C:\Documents and Settings\Sarah>

After chdkdsk failed, I used TestDisk, the default option for partion type was none:

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Drive D: - 125 GB / 117 GiB - CHS 15297 255 63
     Partition               Start        End    Size in sectors
>P NTFS                     0   0  1 15297 210 17  245759552

Structure: Ok.

Keys T: change type, P: list files,
     Enter: to continue
NTFS, blocksize=4096, 125 GB / 117 GiB

When I continued, I got the following message:

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Drive D: - 125 GB / 117 GiB - CHS 15297 255 63

     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors

   P NTFS                     0   0  1 15297 210 17  245759552

Write isn't available because the partition table type "None" has been selected.

I tried running TestDisk again, but this time selected partition type Intel/PC and got the following result from Analyse:

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Drive D: - 125 GB / 117 GiB - CHS 15297 255 63
Current partition structure:
     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors

 1 * Sys=4F               120527  49 53 234813 237 34 1836016416

Bad relative sector.
 2 * Sys=73               119380 132 62 153270  41 37  544437093

Bad relative sector.
 3 * Sys=2B               113201  29 24 147074 114 59  544175136

Bad relative sector.
 4 * SpeedStor            177063 118 26 177066 225 63      54974

Bad relative sector.
Only one partition must be bootable
Space conflict between the following two partitions
 3 * Sys=2B               113201  29 24 147074 114 59  544175136
 2 * Sys=73               119380 132 62 153270  41 37  544437093
Space conflict between the following two partitions
 2 * Sys=73               119380 132 62 153270  41 37  544437093
 1 * Sys=4F               120527  49 53 234813 237 34 1836016416
Space conflict between the following two partitions
 1 * Sys=4F               120527  49 53 234813 237 34 1836016416
 4 * SpeedStor            177063 118 26 177066 225 63      54974
 
 

After doing a quick search and deeper search and letting TestDisk scan each cylinder, the result was blank:

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Drive D: - 125 GB / 117 GiB - CHS 15297 255 63
     Partition               Start        End    Size in sectors


Keys A: add partition, L: load backup, Enter: to continue

I'm unable to add a partition and I get the following:

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Drive D: - 125 GB / 117 GiB - CHS 15297 255 63

     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors


No partition found or selected for recovery

The files on the USB are still accessible, but I can't change the state of the drive. I initially thought it may be a disk write protection, but I confirmed in USB drive properties settings and regedit that no USb write protection was on. There is also no "lock switch" on the USB itself.

Any guidance on how I can wipe this USB drive completely or rebuild structure so I can use again? No need to back up or recover any data.

Thanks in advance for help! Will share my results back with the community!

[cgrenier]

Run TestDisk, select the PhysicalDriveX instead of D:, Advanced, Boot, List.
If you can see your files, copy them.
If it doesn't work, run PhotoRec, choose [Whole] instead of [Free]