Restore USB-Sticks by stevie pup

[mikeslr]

stevie pup posted instructions for restoring USB-Sticks here, viewtopic.php?p=27034#p27034. Thanks stevie pup. I thought that information might be generally useful.

Using Windows OS and programs in it.

When you come to make entries in the system, ignore the quotation marks. So plug in one of those USB sticks, and here we go:

Stage 1

1. Click on start button in bottom left hand corner, click “all programmes” then click on “Accessories”

2. Right click on “Command prompt” then click on “Run as administrator”. You will get a box pop up asking if you want to allow changes, click yes

3. In the black box that comes up next type “diskpart” then hit enter

4. At this point you may get another black box come up. In this type “list disk” then hit enter

5. What will be displayed next will look something like this:
   Disk 0 Online 232GB
   Disk 1 Online 7377MB

It is obvious from this that Disk 0 is the hard drive and Disk 1 is the USB stick, simply by the size of each. Probably best if you don't have anything else plugged in so as not to confuse things.

1. Make absolutely sure you've correctly identified your USB stick. IF YOU PICK THE WRONG ONE YOU RISK WRECKING YOUR HARD DRIVE.

2. So in the example above we've identified the USB stick as Disk 1, so we type “select disk 1” and hit enter. If yours is Disk 2, you would enter "select disk 2", and so on

3. You will get a message to say Disk 1/2/etc is the selected disk. Make sure it's the right one then type “clean” and hit enter

4. At this point you should get a message stating DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk. If you do, all well and good, but sometimes you will get a message to say there's been a problem: Access denied. If you do, don't panic, simply type “clean” again and hit enter

In all the cases I've done any that have failed at the first attempt have all succeeded at the second attempt. I'm afraid I have no idea why some take two attempts

1. You can now close the CMD window but leave the USB stick where it is

Stage 2

1. Go to Control Panel - System and Security - Administrative Tools

2. Double click on “Computer Management” then click on “Disk Management”

3. You will now see the various drives on the PC. The USB stick will be in black/grey and say “unallocated”. Right click in this area and select “New Simple Volume”

4. Click next on each following page (it's normally ok to leave defaults) then OK and Finish

You should now have a USB stick that is back to it's original capacity and basically as new.