USB stick detected but can't be mounted

I have a Kingston DataTraveler SE6 8GB USB stick which I use as a liveusb medium. The liveusb was created with UNetbootin and was working fine, I also enabled persistance in it.

Today I connected the USB into another computer but it was not being mounted anywhere. I opened a terminal window and issued lsusb and it gets detected:

• Bus 001 Device 016: ID 0951:1664 Kingston Technology

And opening the Discs application shows this:

It says it's located in /dev/sdd however that location is non existant, this is what I get from blkid:

 /dev/sda: LABEL="Backup 2" UUID="6C5D28267DB27322" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sdb1: LABEL="Reservado para el sistema" UUID="4C4C42384C421CD8" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sdb2: UUID="D8E444D2E444B512" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sdc1: LABEL="Backup" UUID="6ECB255D7EC7EAD4" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sdc2: UUID="c7a99999-898f-4452-afc2-05525c6b20f2" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sdc3: UUID="A5EC-08D2" TYPE="vfat" /dev/sdc4: UUID="00b3c665-7957-4884-8244-e7f94b2a12b5" TYPE="swap" /dev/sdc5: UUID="efe13c6c-c69d-4b91-9a7d-a33c21ec3fb0" UUID_SUB="478d3690-c14c-4dec-ac7c-06a7daad021d" TYPE="btrfs" /dev/sdc6: UUID="79e19479-3d06-4e0f-a8a5-352a0dc71deb" UUID_SUB="5dc9e118-a6e2-4e1f-bb08-d103608d6afc" TYPE="btrfs" 

Since the USB stick is getting detected I'm hoping there's still something I can do to format it and keep using it, How can I forcefully mount it and format it to FAT?

If I attempt to mount it it gives me this:

 sudo mkdir /media/usbdrive sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdd /media/usbdrive mount: special device /dev/sdd does not exist

If I try to use the command dd this happens:

 sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd bs=512 count=1 dd: opening `/dev/sdd': No medium found

If I try to use mkfs.vfat this happens:

 sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdd mkfs.vfat 3.0.13 (30 Jun 2012) /dev/sdd: No medium found

It is worth mentioning that, in both Ubuntu and Windows the USB is detected but can't be mounted. Windows makes a sound notifying that a device has been inserted and Ubuntu does as described above. Under Windows the device is assigned a drive letter in my case E: however it doesn't show up in the Explorer sidebar but does show up under the Device Manager.

4 Answers

The problem is most likely the partition table written by the manufacturer. Have a look at the answer on this question and see if it helps you.

I have had exactly the same problem : a 8GB pendrive working like a charm or not mounting depending on the computer and on the usb port. I fund that this 8GB pendrive had a max current of 500 mA (5 times more than my other pendrives)! I am convinced it is the source of the problem.

Note : I fund the max power of the device with :

sudo lsusb -D /dev/bus/usb/xxx/yyy

where xxx and yyy are given by lsusb.

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I had similar problem (with external HDD). I solved it in this way, that I inserted cable to other USB port. I supposed that tis one, which didn't work was USB3 and second was USB2.

I had the same problem.

Adata 32GB C902.

Everywhere I tried to open the drive I gettin' the message: "Medium not found."
The drive was listed in lsusb (Linux) and "Please insert disk in drive X" in (Windows)

I booted my windows XP partition and navigated to this site: Adata USB Recovery
I typed the serial number of the drive, waited few seconds and the download started.

The adata recovery tool says:
4-5 lines of metadata including Wrong device name starting with XXXXXXX end etc.
Firmware Ver.N : NO FIRMWARE
I pressed update and it started repairing the drive ~2min and everything was OK.
I unplug the device and plug it again - I have now 30GB free space.

Just before ~5 min I was fixed it.