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Yesterday, on my windows 10, I tried using the Windows MediaCreation Tool (win10) for my usb drive because one of my other computers needed to update to win 10 from win 8.1. However the tool didn't work and the tool ran into an error at 96%. Now my drive is called XXXXXXXX U167 CONTROLLER USB and has, according to windows disk managament, no media. Running CHKDSK says The volume could not be opened for direct access. How do I fix this?

Farrathan
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    There's probably no fix. And no, Media Creation tool DIDN'T corrupt the USB stick, no similar tool does. That said, it's important to understand that creating an installation media especially for Windows always implies writing a huge amount of data. For any flash memory in its last legs that's enough to make it completely unusable from then on. That's what happened to you, don't blame the software, get a new known good USB stick, end of story. – ChanganAuto Jun 10 '22 at 23:42

2 Answers2

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This happened to me recently, and I fixed it by following these steps on a Windows 11 machine. It should work on Windows 10 machines as well:

  1. Insert the corrupted USB flash drive.
  2. Open an Administrator Command Prompt and enter "diskpart"
  3. enter "list disk"
  4. enter "select disk #" replacing # with the disk number of the USB
  5. enter "clean" to erase the USB
  6. enter "create part pri"
  7. enter "format fs=fat32 quick"
  8. enter "active"
  9. enter "exit" twice and check to see if the USB is fixed.

This worked for me, worth a shot if you want to recover your USB.

Roland Cardinal
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Media Creation Tool did not corrupt your USB key, and even if it might have, there's no proof one way or another.

What is the most likely scenario is that your USB drive is aging, and this act was it's last gasp.

Replace it. Never get too close to a USB drive: they die. They store data, they're convenient, they age, and then they die, and then you replace them.

music2myear
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  • If that is so, would it be a waste to use a 2.5 removable drive to install windows,or should i get a new drive. – Farrathan Jun 14 '22 at 12:43