USB flash drive troubles

[GMacDaddyTPO]

I was wondering if anyone knew this one. I accidentally removed my flash drive without ejecting the other day, and now when I insert it into any Mac, it comes up

The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer

When I open disk utility, it looks like the attached. I can't "Repair" it, can't erase it, nothing.

Anyone have any ideas? Or is she dead for good?

 

[brop52]

You can't even erase it? That's a problem.

 

[GMacDaddyTPO]

You can't even erase it? That's a problem.

Yeah....that's what I was thinking...

 

[waw74]

I've never used it on a flash drive, but you might try GParted. It's a linux live CD (you can boot and run everything off the CD, when you're done, just reboot and eject the cd and you're back to normal)

I've had pretty good luck recovering hard drives with this. but you'll need to know a few linux terminal commands, google is your friend here, the ones you want are

ls - List files
cd - Change directory (folder)
"cd Desktop" for example to change to desktop folder
"cd /" to change to the highest level of the drive
"cd .." to go up a directory

cp - copy file (or folder) requires 2 arguments
cp some_file new_location

you can use wild cards
"cp * new_location" would copy all files - can also do "cp a*" all files starting with lowercase a.
"./" current directory so "cp /some_file ./" would copy a file to the directory you are in.

-------
all this is only if you need to recover files, if you just want to reformat the stick, you don't need any of those commands as the format and partition program is all graphical