USB Flash Disk Won't Format (Read Only)

[alefe]

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.38.1).
Changes will only remain in memory until you decide to save them.
Be careful before using the write command.

fdisk: could not open /dev/sdb: Read-only file system

[bedna]

That might be a sign of faulty hardware tbh.
Doesn’t linux automatically put anything in read only mode if it detects hardware irregularities?
Edit. I cross my fingers I am wrong.

[cscs]

@alefe

fdisk: could not open /dev/sdb: Read-only file system

OK … try this:

sudo hdparm -r0 /dev/sdb

(then try mounting or interacting with it again - fdisk, i suppose)

Also please verify your device does not have some sort of hard switch - for example many SD cards may have a little toggle for ‘locking’ which can force this read-only situation.

[megavolt]

@alefe

fdisk: could not open /dev/sdb: Read-only file system

Could be then only:

A) Flash Disk reaches its lifetime, no more write cycles possible, therefore it is readonly.
B) A physical switch let it be locked as read only.

[alefe]

@cscs

(then try mounting or interacting with it again - fdisk, i suppose)

Also please verify your device does not have some sort of hard switch - for example many SD cards may have a little toggle for ‘locking’ which can force this read-only situation.

sudo hdparm -r0 /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 setting readonly to 0 (off)
 readonly      =  1 (on)

Nothing bruh

[alefe]

Right, alternative B would not be possible, because I don’t have a physical switch on this device.
But, considering alternative A, how do you know if it really has reached the end of its useful life?

[megavolt]

@alefe

But, considering alternative A, how do you know if it really has reached the end of its useful life?

Look, every Flash Drive has a Controller and a Flash Memory. The controller controls how much data can be written and how in simple words. There is a hard limit of write cycles, like on any SSD. On dump USB Flash Drives, you can only detect it when you cannot write data on it (create, modify, delete), but still you can read everything.

[alefe]

Got it, from that, I believe that’s the problem then, because everything we tried went down the drain.

[bedna]

You could try installing gsmartcontrol and maybe you might find some info there if you are curious.

pamac install gsmartcontrol

Edit. I revoke that, I tried with a usb stick and it shows nothing, guess it’s not S.M.A.R.T capable. xD
My “ssd” usb stick gave me info though.

[megavolt]

Just an alternative you don’t have a Flash Drive… wrote that myself and I use it on all of my Manjaro systems:

@megavolt

I have a backup OS, which is just a customized Manjaro ISO and I don’t use a flash drive for this.

1. Make some space on sdc and create a 10GB vfat partition and flag it with boot,esp and name the partition and file system “RECOVERY” ( important ).
2. Mount it and install grub on it:

sudo mount --mkdir --label RECOVERY /mnt/recovery
sudo grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --recheck --removable --efi-directory=/mnt/recovery --boot-directory=/mnt/recovery/boot --verbose --force

3. Create an efi entry in your UEFI/BIOS:

 sudo efibootmgr --create --disk /dev/sdX --part <number> --label "Recovery" --loader '\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI'

4. Copy a Manjaro ISO to that partition:

sudo cp -f /path/to/manjaro.iso /mnt/recovery/manjaro.iso

5. This script has to be in /mnt/recovery/boot/grub/grub.cfg (create it):

function load_video {
  if [ x$feature_all_video_module = xy ]; then
    insmod all_video
  else
    insmod efi_gop
    insmod efi_uga
    insmod ieee1275_fb
    insmod vbe
    insmod vga
    insmod video_bochs
    insmod video_cirrus
  fi
}

if loadfont $prefix/fonts/unicode.pf2 ; then
  # Set Video
  set gfxmode=auto
  load_video
  insmod gfxterm
  # Set Langauge for grub
  set locale_dir="$prefix/locale"
  set lang="de"
  insmod gettext
fi

# Set keyboard language for grub
#insmod keylayouts
#keymap $prefix/lang.gkb

terminal_input console
terminal_output gfxterm

insmod part_gpt
insmod part_msdos
insmod fat
set label="RECOVERY"
search --no-floppy --label --set=root $label
insmod png

set timeout_style="menu"
set timeout="10"

menuentry "Manjaro ISO"  {
    # Setup grub
    load_video
    set gfxpayload=keep
    insmod part_gpt
    insmod part_msdos
    insmod fat

    ## Set Parameters for the ISO
    # Set the free or nonfree drivers
    set dri="free"
    # Set the language of the Desktop (localectl list-locales)
    set lang="de_DE"
    # Set keyboard language (localectl list-keymaps)
    set keyboard="de"
    # Set the timezone (timedatectl list-timezones)
    set timezone="Europe/Berlin"
    # Copy to RAM (needs at least 8GB RAM)
    #set c2r="copy2ram"

    # Set Params searching the ISO
    # Label of the partition where it searches for the iso file
    set label="RECOVERY"
    # Search for the partition label and switch to the root directory of it
    search --no-floppy --label --set=root $label
    # Set the device where the ISO is located
    set device="/dev/disk/by-label/$label"
    # Set the Path to the ISO
    set file="/manjaro.iso"

    loopback loop $file
    linux  (loop)/boot/vmlinuz-x86_64  img_dev=$dev img_loop=$file driver=$dri tz=$timezone lang=$lang keytable=$keyboard $cr2
    initrd (loop)/boot/intel_ucode.img (loop)/boot/initramfs-x86_64.img
}

6. And now you are done. You can now reboot, type F12 and choose “Recovery” from the Bootmenu. This little installation is fully dedicated and even work when your main installation is non-functional. You can also do a full installation form here.

You need to adjust the parameter in menu to your language. Parameters are mostly explained. If you have an amd CPU, then replace intel_ucode.img with amd_ucode.img.

[alefe]

I’ll try this another time. Thanks!

[bedna]

@megavolt Wow, I’m def bookmarking that for playing around with, I have played around with mounting isos directly in my standard grub, this is a very nice reference! Thank you!

To use nvidia do I only have to change set dri="free" to nonfree, or does this still bring up the grub menu (I see a timeout) and this is just the menu chooser will be at default?

[megavolt]

@bedna

To use nvidia do I only have to change set dri="free" to nonfree, or does this still bring up the grub menu (I see a timeout) and this is just the menu chooser will be at default?

You see the Grub Menu, where you can choose to boot the ISO. The grub menu of the ISO will be skipped, since all parameters are already set.

[bedna]

Ah, I see, thank you very much for this, I will def play around with it!

[jrichard326]

Would this work to zero the critical initial sectors when normal formatting tools don’t work?

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdY bs=4k count=1 status=progress

where “Y” in sdY is the actual USB drive.

[linux-aarhus]

@bedna

I have played around with mounting isos directly in my standard grub

It has been around for a long time in Tutorials section

• [HowTo] Boot Manjaro ISO directly with GRUB

@alefe

sudo chown -R $USER /dev/sdb

You cannot do that - the command may return OK but it won’t work.

In the Tutorials section is a utility script to handle the task

• [root tip] [Utility script] Repartition and format your USB stick

If @cscs suggestion in #10 is failing - it is likely end of life - it happens more often than you think.

[JohnML]

Simple alternative is install package
grml-rescueboot

See also explanation for Debian
http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=rescueboot

Now its as simple as copy your *.iso to
/boot/grml/
then update-grub and you have aditional boot entry for your *.iso

[Teo]

I just tried an it does not work for just ANY iso. By default it works for their grml images. The grub script there is optimized for those images, if you put a manjaro iso it will not find vmlinuz, initrd etc. where it looks.
So for a manjaro iso you have to use the method from the How-to.

[JohnML]

Just veryfied with booting
manjaro-xfce-21.3.7-220816-linux515.iso
from the new grub-menue entry … it works!

Sysinfo

Generated on 2023-06-24 11:49:1687600193

#################### inxi -Fxzc0 ########################

System:
  Kernel: 6.1.31-2-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.1.1 Desktop: Xfce v: 4.18.1
    Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 81RS v: Lenovo Yoga S740-14IIL serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: LENOVO model: LNVNB161216 v: SDK0J40709 WIN serial: <superuser required> UEFI: LENOVO
    v: BYCN39WW date: 05/28/2021
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 63.6 Wh (97.4%) condition: 65.3/62.0 Wh (105.3%) volts: 17.1 min: 15.4
    model: LGC L19L4PD2 status: full
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: Intel Core i7-1065G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Ice Lake rev: 5 cache:
    L1: 320 KiB L2: 2 MiB L3: 8 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1350 high: 1500 min/max: 400/3900 cores: 1: 1500 2: 1396 3: 608 4: 1500
    5: 1301 6: 1500 7: 1500 8: 1500 bogomips: 23968
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Iris Plus Graphics G7 vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-11
    bus-ID: 00:02.0
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP108M [GeForce MX250] vendor: Lenovo driver: nvidia v: 530.41.03 arch: Pascal
    bus-ID: 2b:00.0
  Device-3: Chicony Integrated Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB bus-ID: 3-5:5
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.8 driver: X: loaded: modesetting,nvidia unloaded: nouveau
    dri: iris gpu: i915 resolution: 1: 1920x1080~60Hz 2: N/A
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 23.0.4 renderer: Mesa Intel Iris Plus Graphics (ICL GT2)
    direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Ice Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-icl
    bus-ID: 00:1f.3
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.31-2-MANJARO status: kernel-api
  Server-1: sndiod v: N/A status: off
  Server-2: PipeWire v: 0.3.70 status: active
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ice Lake-LP PCH CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi v: kernel bus-ID: 00:14.3
  IF: wlp0s20f3 state: up mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8153 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter driver: r8152 type: USB bus-ID: 2-1.4:4
  IF: enp0s13f0u1u4 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: pan1 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX201 Bluetooth driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB bus-ID: 3-10:14
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 4 state: up address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.84 TiB used: 445.39 GiB (23.6%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Micron model: MTFDHBA1T0TCK size: 953.87 GiB temp: 45.9 C
  ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD10EARX-00N0YB0 size: 931.51 GiB type: USB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 57.85 GiB used: 41.66 GiB (72.0%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p8
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 259.5 MiB used: 114.8 MiB (44.2%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 16.67 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/nvme0n1p9
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 52.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 284 Uptime: 6m Memory: available: 15.19 GiB used: 2.71 GiB (17.8%) Init: systemd
  Compilers: gcc: 13.1.1 clang: 15.0.7 Packages: 1987 Client: Unknown Client: wrapper-2.0
  inxi: 3.3.27

If i recall it correct i just installed the package and copied the *.iso to the now existing /boot/grml folder plus update-grub

Never needed it because Manjaro just works for years now

But i now think its useless for your usecase because /boot/grml is part of the system you want to fix?!

I make a full backup every night with backintime, never fixed a ruined system because its easy to restore with backintime.