'No medium found' after issuing dd on an old external hard drive

Question

I'm trying to format an old external hard drive. It doesn't pop up in gparted.

It does get detected though:

dmesg output:

[20022.409487] usb 2-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 13 using ehci-pci
[20022.538837] usb 2-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0930, idProduct=0b09
[20022.538843] usb 2-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1
[20022.538847] usb 2-1.2: Product: USB 3.5"-HDD
[20022.538850] usb 2-1.2: Manufacturer: TOSHIBA
[20022.538853] usb 2-1.2: SerialNumber: 001d93cc
[20022.541204] usb-storage 2-1.2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[20022.541889] scsi host6: usb-storage 2-1.2:1.0
[20023.558459] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Sunplus  USB2SATA bridge  0407 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[20023.558974] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[20023.561919] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

lsusb output:

Bus 002 Device 013: ID 0930:0b09 Toshiba Corp. PX1396E-3T01 External hard drive

I read somewhere that I should dd the device with zero's, but that fails as well:

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb
dd: failed to open '/dev/sdb': No medium found

Is there anything I can try before throwing it out of the window?

Solution 1

Turned out that I was using a bad power supply. Make sure you use a proper power supply.

Solution 2

In my case I was trying to do:

• Insert USB stick
• Unmount automatically mounted partition
• Try sudo dd if=/mnt/d/instalki/OS/bionicpup32-8.0-uefi.iso of=/dev/sdb

The error occured only when I unmounted USB stick clicking in file manager GUI. After unmounting by sudo umount /dev/sdb1 dd executed without complaint.

Solution 3

Most of the times the "No medium found" error which is same as "No media" label shown on some GUIs means that the hdd is damaged. I tried to "repair" such disks once, I followed every guide I found on the web, I used several OS but nothing could be done...

So, my advice is "throw it in the recycle bin" (not from the window) and spend your time with something else!

Comments

[Jos]

It may be worth the trouble to reboot with the external drive connected, if you haven't already done so. I've seen USB drives being suddenly recognized, or their parameters changed, after a reboot.

[Rod Smith]

The dmesg output shows that the kernel thinks it's a removable disk (like a floppy, magneto-optical, or similar device). Googling suggests that's a USB-to-SATA adapter device. I suggest you try re-plugging the USB/SATA connector, since it may be loose. Also check to be sure the disk is powered, and try it on another computer or OS. If you're convinced the hardware is OK, try the latest Ubuntu (17.04); it could be an older kernel has bugs that prevent it from working with this device.

[Mark Jeronimus]

This is the real answer. Don't toss something in the bin because of a Linux quirk. Eject is not umount and I had this issue before with something unrelated (forgot what). Ejecting removes the device node, unmounting doesn't.

[AdamS]

No need to throw it away - the see the other answer about unmounting properly which worked for me.