Hey all
So, this issue has been driving me crazy for the past 2 days. I have a Kingston (DataTraveler SE9 G2) 64GB USB 3.0/2.0 flash drive. I wanted to change the OS of a PC I have permanently plugged in my TV from Windows 11 to a lighter, Linux distro. I chose Solus Budgie 4.3. I made a bootable USB on the aforementioned drive using PowerISO and everything seemed fine. However, it is a habit of mine to always unplug and then replug any USB I intend on using or taking with me. In this case, when I did that, the flash drive didn't appear in explorer, so I went into disk manager and looked for it there.
To be honest, I don't quite remember what I saw at the time, but I think that the drive had a tiny (100mb at most) GPT partition (initially, I did not notice that it was GPT) that was seemingly empty, and the rest was unallocated space. I deleted the small partition and created a new one that occupied the whole drive (this was done with AOMEI partition assistant, as I am more comfortable with that program). Everything seemed fine, so I opened PowerISO again, re-created the bootable USB and... same thing. It was only upon reopening disk manager that I noticed the small partition was GPT, so I took a stab in the dark and assumed that this was some weird contradiction that was caused by the Solus ISO, and that the bootable USB would still work. To my surprise, I was right and I was able to install Solus on my TV PC without any problems.
The real problem arose when I returned to my main PC to re-format my USB in order to use it to transfer some files. Like before, it didn't appear in explorer, and the same partition situation was showing up in disk manager. Again, I deleted the small partition, created a new one for the entire drive. I then unplugged and replugged the drive, only for it to not show up in explorer. Back to disk manager, I noticed that the partition was being detected, but didn't have a drive letter assigned to it, so I tried to fix that. I went into AOMEI and assigned a drive letter. After the operation finished successfully I refreshed my explorer window, and all that popped up was this:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 1)
(sorry for the imgur links for the images, I'm new to this forum and I couldn't find a way to integrate pictures into the post. the link itself is a link to a gallery with all the necessary photos, I just pasted it again and again after each instance of an image so it's unmissable or somethin idk)
(Main PC Specs: i5-10400f@2.9Ghz, 16gb single channel memory@2666mhz, gigabyte H410M H, 1 main SSD for Windows + 3 HDDs and Windows 11 21H2 build 22000.493)
I deleted the empty "Removable Disk" volume with "CMD>mountvol drive letter: /d" and began scouring the internet. Here's a list of the things I tried so far:
1) Opened CMD and then:
diskpart
list disk
select disk #
list partition
select partition #
clean
create partition primary
delete partition override
Then I went into disk manager and created a New Simple Volume.
I have tried: different file systems, different cluster sizes and not formatting the partition while creating it.
I haven't tried: mounting the volume in an empty NTFS folder (mainly because I don't know what that does), performing a standard format instead of a quick one and enabling file and folder compression. The option to not assign a drive letter or drive path is greyed out.
If I create the volume without formatting, I get this error:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 2)
If I format the partition while creating it, I get this and the previous error:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 3)
2) I used EaseUS Partition Master. This actually worked once, and I got the drive to show up in explorer, however when I ejected and reconnected it, the drive letter was lost. Now, when I assign a drive letter via EaseUS or AOMEI, the operation supposedly finishes successfully, but all that shows up in explorer is the same thing as the very first image.
3) Checking the registry path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion to see if the "RunOnce" key is there. It was already there.
4) I can't use chkdsk drive letter: /f /r /x as it errors out like this:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 4)
5) Uninstalling and re-installing the device from Device Manager
6) When I try to format the drive partition from Disk Manager itself I get this error:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 5)
Naturally, I read this and tried to assign a drive letter. Should've known better, as this is what shows up when I click on "Change Drive Letter and Paths":
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 6)
Then, I tried onlining the volume without a drive letter assigned (Volume 7 - 58GB is the flash drive):
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 7)
Note: On some seemingly random occasions, the drive shows up as completely full (0 bytes free) in EaseUS. It may be a bug. If it has an actual cause, however, I haven't been able to figure it out. Here's a picture, with the drive highlighted:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 8)
To summarize (TL;DR) this post that might be way too long: I created a Solus bootable USB in PowerISO. After some tinkering I am stuck in a permanent loop of:
So I guess my question is: Can this be fixed? If not, what caused it? So I can avoid similar problems in the future. All help/advice is appreciated!
Thank you all in advance
So, this issue has been driving me crazy for the past 2 days. I have a Kingston (DataTraveler SE9 G2) 64GB USB 3.0/2.0 flash drive. I wanted to change the OS of a PC I have permanently plugged in my TV from Windows 11 to a lighter, Linux distro. I chose Solus Budgie 4.3. I made a bootable USB on the aforementioned drive using PowerISO and everything seemed fine. However, it is a habit of mine to always unplug and then replug any USB I intend on using or taking with me. In this case, when I did that, the flash drive didn't appear in explorer, so I went into disk manager and looked for it there.
To be honest, I don't quite remember what I saw at the time, but I think that the drive had a tiny (100mb at most) GPT partition (initially, I did not notice that it was GPT) that was seemingly empty, and the rest was unallocated space. I deleted the small partition and created a new one that occupied the whole drive (this was done with AOMEI partition assistant, as I am more comfortable with that program). Everything seemed fine, so I opened PowerISO again, re-created the bootable USB and... same thing. It was only upon reopening disk manager that I noticed the small partition was GPT, so I took a stab in the dark and assumed that this was some weird contradiction that was caused by the Solus ISO, and that the bootable USB would still work. To my surprise, I was right and I was able to install Solus on my TV PC without any problems.
The real problem arose when I returned to my main PC to re-format my USB in order to use it to transfer some files. Like before, it didn't appear in explorer, and the same partition situation was showing up in disk manager. Again, I deleted the small partition, created a new one for the entire drive. I then unplugged and replugged the drive, only for it to not show up in explorer. Back to disk manager, I noticed that the partition was being detected, but didn't have a drive letter assigned to it, so I tried to fix that. I went into AOMEI and assigned a drive letter. After the operation finished successfully I refreshed my explorer window, and all that popped up was this:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 1)
(sorry for the imgur links for the images, I'm new to this forum and I couldn't find a way to integrate pictures into the post. the link itself is a link to a gallery with all the necessary photos, I just pasted it again and again after each instance of an image so it's unmissable or somethin idk)
(Main PC Specs: i5-10400f@2.9Ghz, 16gb single channel memory@2666mhz, gigabyte H410M H, 1 main SSD for Windows + 3 HDDs and Windows 11 21H2 build 22000.493)
I deleted the empty "Removable Disk" volume with "CMD>mountvol drive letter: /d" and began scouring the internet. Here's a list of the things I tried so far:
1) Opened CMD and then:
diskpart
list disk
select disk #
list partition
select partition #
clean
create partition primary
delete partition override
Then I went into disk manager and created a New Simple Volume.
I have tried: different file systems, different cluster sizes and not formatting the partition while creating it.
I haven't tried: mounting the volume in an empty NTFS folder (mainly because I don't know what that does), performing a standard format instead of a quick one and enabling file and folder compression. The option to not assign a drive letter or drive path is greyed out.
If I create the volume without formatting, I get this error:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 2)
If I format the partition while creating it, I get this and the previous error:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 3)
2) I used EaseUS Partition Master. This actually worked once, and I got the drive to show up in explorer, however when I ejected and reconnected it, the drive letter was lost. Now, when I assign a drive letter via EaseUS or AOMEI, the operation supposedly finishes successfully, but all that shows up in explorer is the same thing as the very first image.
3) Checking the registry path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion to see if the "RunOnce" key is there. It was already there.
4) I can't use chkdsk drive letter: /f /r /x as it errors out like this:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 4)
5) Uninstalling and re-installing the device from Device Manager
6) When I try to format the drive partition from Disk Manager itself I get this error:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 5)
Naturally, I read this and tried to assign a drive letter. Should've known better, as this is what shows up when I click on "Change Drive Letter and Paths":
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 6)
Then, I tried onlining the volume without a drive letter assigned (Volume 7 - 58GB is the flash drive):
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 7)
Note: On some seemingly random occasions, the drive shows up as completely full (0 bytes free) in EaseUS. It may be a bug. If it has an actual cause, however, I haven't been able to figure it out. Here's a picture, with the drive highlighted:
View: https://imgur.com/a/VYzG5oE
(Image 8)
To summarize (TL;DR) this post that might be way too long: I created a Solus bootable USB in PowerISO. After some tinkering I am stuck in a permanent loop of:
- Create new partition on USB
- Disk Manager fails to format and assign a letter to the partition
- I assign a drive letter via third-party software
- I get an removable drive popup in explorer that's completely empty
- I delete the empty "Removable Drive" volume with CMD
- I disconnect and reconnect my flash drive only to find that the drive letter is missing
So I guess my question is: Can this be fixed? If not, what caused it? So I can avoid similar problems in the future. All help/advice is appreciated!
Thank you all in advance
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