My Flash Drive Won't Format
 

hello Friends, please I ran into this problem and now I've not known how to tackle it.. while I was working with my flash, it got to a stage where it won't eject safely.. so I had to pull it out from the pc.. now the flash won't format..neither quick nor full format... I even had to change OS, but still no change.. now am In windows 7 tryin to do a full format.. but it's takin ages and wouldn't even show a sign in the progress bar.. the funny thing is that on the "capacity field," it still shows the size of the flash (7.53GB) making me believe it's still good.. please is there anything I can do to fix this precious flash drive of mine.. thanks a lot in anticipation...

hello, kindly give us the brand and model of your flash drive.

this happened to my dad's usb flash drive once. after experiencing the same trial and error that you did, i was brought to the manufacturer's website. they had a download for a tool that does a special format of the flash drive. supposedly this is something like a "low level" format that is specific to the device. this solution worked for me.

wow!! thanks bro.. that's sounds interesting.. I do not know the make and model of the flash drive. but "MARK VISON" is written on the flash drive with yellow colour.. the colour is red and deepblue.. that's all I know about it.. I may have to attach the photo here for you to see, as soon as I take a snap shot of it. I pray it works.. thanks again...

http://www.syschat.com/attachment.ph...1&d=1299854240


Bro, this is the image of the flash drive I'm talking about. and this is the link to where I found it. thanks.


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...523&CatId=2633

kaycee, as of now i couldnt find the exact website of "markvision".

but try this tool made by hp. some have used it to format their flash drives.

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8 Download - EXTREME Overclocking

or alternate link from cnet
HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com


one more thing you can check is that when you plug the mark vision usb flash drive, if you can right click on it to see its properties -- if it says RAW or FAT/Fat32/ntfs.

DominicD, thanks a lot for that link, I was able to download the app. installed it.. thou it was being slow especially on my windows 7.. but it seemed to want to work. After hanging for quite some time, it asked me if I really want to format the flash drive and that all data would be erased, I chose "yes" but unfortunately it told me that my flash is "WRITE PROTECTED" and it could not format it.. Please how would have my flash become write protected??? please is there any other thing I could do at this instance.. I really need to save this Flash DIsk... Really, thanks a lot for all your efforts...

im a bit worried that the flash drive may already have a bad sector.
it seems to always hang at certain point when you try to format it. unless we could find the official website of "mark vision" and if they have their own special formatting/repair tool, im thinking you should consider sending the drive back for warranty.

the tigerdirect site says that the drive is under lifetime warranty. if the cost of sending the drive back is going to be cheaper then buying a new one, i suggest you return it.

well it might not hurt to buy a spare flash drive too.

my personal flash drive is a pqi brand 8gb, had it for two years now
the office flash drive we're using are transcend, passed around in the office, terribly abused with lots of data writing and deleting. no problems with it.

i previously bought a kingston flash drive, but unfortunately it was a clever fake (very slow writing speed, wrong data capacity, and did not have the correct serial number/model number as mentioned in kingston's website).

DominicD. from one of the posts u did, I figured that the flash drive was in RAW... so pplease in this case, what can I do if it's RAW.. this I found when I tried to use another ware to format it and app said it does not recognnise the device cos it's in RAW.. any idea?? thanks

Hi DominicD. I bumped into a site I think it's the MARKVISION website..
"http://www.mymarkvision.com/index.html"..

i also discovered that the flash is in RAW file system fromm what u asked the last time.. is there anything you can do please?? I need to fix this flash..
thanks a lot...

hi kaycee,

thanks for the link to the mymarkvision website. while their website is still under construction, i tried to reach them through their online form and asked if they have a formatting tool specifically made for their flash drives.

ill post here if i get updates from them via email.


meanwhile, i found this suggestion from a user that supposedly had a problem with a markvision flash drive.

in summary:
1. browse to KINGMAX Technology Inc.
2. download and extract the external hard drive software
3. Install and run the executable. Use it to format the markvision flash drive.

The tool is supposedly made by kingmax, but it has worked for non-kingmax branded flash drives.

i got the info from this link: USBest USB2FlashStorage - Flash-Media - Storage