Unable to format memory card

[darael]

I found a 64 GB Sandisk microSD card in an old mobile phone and it's not size for a spare. I wanted to test the memory card, so used the "clean all" command in Diskpart. A while later it finished, so I tried to create a new partition, but it said something along the lines of being unable to allocate the free space.

After a very quick Google, I tried SD Memory Card Formatter from sdcard.org. This couldn't format the drive either.

Has Diskpart nuked the drive completely? Are there any other tools I could try?

 

[darael]

Tried a different SD card reader?

If so then I'd say it's toast, although I likely to be diskpart's fault, just an unlucky coincidence

Just tried another card reader now and this is what I get from Diskpart:

DISKPART> select disk 5

Disk 5 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> clean

DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

DISKPART> create partition primary

No usable free extent could be found. It may be that there is insufficient
free space to create a partition at the specified size and offset. Specify
different size and offset values or don't specify either to create the
maximum sized partition. It may be that the disk is partitioned using the MBR disk
partitioning format and the disk contains either 4 primary partitions, (no
more partitions may be created), or 3 primary partitions and one extended
partition, (only logical drives may be created).

SD Card Formatter just gives the message "Formatting failed" on both quick and overwrite formats.

 

[darael]

Have you tried formatting the filesystem before creating the partition?

I used the clean all command previously in Diskpart, which zeroes the entire drive. I can't create a partition in order to full format it.

 

[darael]

I've always had good luck using Gparted on difficult drives / cards. Although that does requires either creating a boot disk or a Linux live CD

I've tried the command line and GUI version of Gparted, but I haven't had any luck with either. The card is toast, but it's not a big deal as it was going to be a spare anyway - so in the paper shredder it goes.

 

[darael]

I was beginning to think that lightning struck me twice last night. I was using a nearly brand new USB drive to test Linux distros on my netbook and at one point in between putting ISO images onto the stick, it suddenly just refused to accept any more writes from Windows. I even tried a another Windows machine to format the disk, but nothing would make the drive usable. It was only GParted, from a PartedMagic USB stick I had laying around, that made the USB drive usable once more.