Thumb Drive Messed Up?

[Vectraat]

So I have a 256 GB thumb drive.
Threw Windows Media Creation Tool on it.
After I was done with Windows, I formatted it and noticed that I only had 32 GB usable. The other storage was there, but I couldn't access it.
So I used diskpart to create a primary partition.
Did a long format, all good, I can see all my available space.
Plugged it in a day later and I can't see the drive under "This PC", no Windows sound was made when it was plugged in.
Doesn't show up under "safely eject" and there's a slow red glow/pulse coming from the thumb drive that normally lights up when I'm reading/writing data - but at a much faster pace.

The thumb drive shows up under Disk Management. Can't eject it from there. The entry is just blank. When I right click > Volumes it just says - Capcity: 0 MB / Unallocated space: 0 MB / Reserved space 0 MB.

Did I toast this drive somehow? Can I fix this?

[vanished]

Not sure about if it's broken or what you can do about it, but if that's the whole story, I don't think you killed it in any way.  That's all basic usage it should be able to handle.

[kingmustard]

USB flash drive*

[Vectraat]

9 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Not sure about if it's broken or what you can do about it, but if that's the whole story, I don't think you killed it in any way.  That's all basic usage it should be able to handle.

Yeah, I'm confused as to how I could've killed it. I have a 15 GB Lexar drive from 10+ years ago that still works just fine. I've reformatted it so many times and I've abused the hell out of it with data transfers and it keeps on tickin'. This drive I've hardly used. I think I've transferred maybe 300 GB of data on it and I've only reformatted it only twice.

[Vectraat]

5 minutes ago, kingmustard said:

USB flash drive*

Useful contribution, thanks.
If you'll notice, It's also called a "thumb drive" via the wiki page you linked. 
If that's not your argument, then tell me, what is. 

[kingmustard]

2 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

Useful contribution, thanks.
If you'll notice, It's also called a "thumb drive" via the wiki page you linked. 
If that's not your argument, then tell me, what is. 

"In 2005, Microsoft was using the term "USB Flash Drive" as the common name for these devices when they introduced the Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager. Alternative names are commonly used, many of which are trademarks of various manufacturers."

"Thumb drive" sounds stupid. Still, it's not as retarded as "pen drive" or "USB stick".

[Vectraat]

Just now, kingmustard said:

"In 2005, Microsoft was using the term "USB Flash Drive" as the common name for these devices when they introduced the Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager. Alternative names are commonly used, many of which are trademarks of various manufacturers."

"Thumb drive" sounds stupid.

FYI, I've always referred to them as Flash Drives, but too many people around me use the term "Thumb Drive" so it just kinda stuck. It's also referred to as a Pen Drive, Gig Stick, Flash Stick, Jump Drive, Disk Key, Disk On Key etc. You clearly knew what I was referring to, so I don't see the point of your post. It's antagonizing and not helpful, so why say anything at all? 

[kingmustard]

1 minute ago, Vectraat said:

FYI, I've always referred to them as Flash Drives, but too many people around me use the term "Thumb Drive" so it just kinda stuck. It's also referred to as a Pen Drive, Gig Stick, Flash Stick, Jump Drive, Disk Key, Disk On Key etc. You clearly knew what I was referring to, so I don't see the point of your post. It's antagonizing and not helpful, so why say anything at all? 

Because there is a correct name for it and I try to enforce that fact throughout the free world 

 

P.S. I love you.

[Thee_Silent]

Just ran into this problem myself yesterday with my fairly new Sandisk 16GB and would even format with partition tools like MiniTool Parition Wizard or Windows and kept coming up with RAW and Unusable flags.

I did however just get mine working again using just diskpart.

 

I ran these commands:
select volume X
clean
select volume X
create partition primary size=XXXXX (In megabytes)
assign letter X
*ignores Windows prompts to format*
format fs=fat32/ntfs/whatever quick

 

After that, I got mine working again

[Thee_Silent]

Wait, is the USB listed in diskpart at all now?

[Vectraat]

19 minutes ago, Thee_Silent said:

Wait, is the USB listed in diskpart at all now?

Just checked now. It shows up as: Disk 7 - No Media - 0 B - 0 B.

Strange that I'd have to run diskpart again. What would I type as a primary size in megabytes for 256 GB? Just 256000 Megabytes? What's wrong with using Windows to format? 

[Thee_Silent]

1 hour ago, Vectraat said:

What's wrong with using Windows to format? 

There's some rare occasions when Windows just doesn't work. Very hard to describe as it's happened a few times to me but then I'd try diskpart and for some reason it would just work even though I thought it's pretty much the same thing except in cmd. (Maybe something wrong with the system)

 

 

1 hour ago, Vectraat said:

Just checked now. It shows up as: Disk 7 - No Media - 0 B - 0 B.

Make sure that it's it, mine today popped up as:

Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info

Volume 4                                                                  Unusable

And got it working, so I would assume that if it's listed, it could be recoverable.

 

1 hour ago, Vectraat said:

What would I type as a primary size in megabytes for 256 GB? Just 256000 Megabytes?

I'd try to remember how big your USB showed up in Windows.

eg. my 16GB comes up as a 14GB normally, so for me I wrote 14000. I haven't tried entering higher though since I only use 8GB max when flashing stuff and 14GB is enough since my USBs don't last long enough before I wipe for another project.

 

BUT

If I want to maximise space, I'd format a smaller amount so maybe just 200GB and then extend in the normal Windows partition manager as that will tell you how much you can actually use