Hi Everyone,
Update: I found a way to resurrect the “dead” USB Drives after some digging.
WHAT HAPPENED: On WIN10… Used a CHEAP USB ADAPTER I found in my drawer. Tried to use Etcher to flash. Hung after a while, said “Flash Failed”. Now that USB drive is not recognized at all on windows and etcher does not see it. Tried 2 more USB drives, one 32Gb and one 128Gb. Etcher failed on both and both disappeared for windows.
I got a much better USB Adapter (Monoprice USB3 5 slot). I tried ETCHER on one remaining 32Gb drive. It WORKED and completed as shown on the Getting Started for Raspberry Pi. I had one more 64Gb USB drive that just arrived along with RPI parts. So I tried that… Etcher also flashed it successfully.
After some messing about I discovered that windows WOULD try (and fail) to format one of these ‘bad’ drives using only its Drive Letter.
OK, original USB Interface was bad somehow. It’s in my trash now. But what about those 3 “ruined, not recognized” drives. Net research suggested they were now “RAW” drives with no formatting at all. I found a suggested fix on THIS PAGE I downloaded the free version of AOMEI Partition Assistant and used it to partition those drives by using the drive letter alone. It WORKED… The 2 32Gb drives were formatted FAT and the 128 Gb drive was formatted NTFS. Now windows finds them and they work again as normal drives.
…Just In Case this kind of thing happens to you or someone you know…
Regards, Terry King
…In The Woods In Vermont
The one who dies with the most Parts LOSES! WHAT DO YOU NEED??