Hi Sylvander,
First, I am assuming that you had only your troublesome flash drive plugged in when you ran lsusb. (That's what I wanted, but neglected to say so.) Only one was listed, so it looks like that was the case. Correct?
(If that's not the case, then my assumptions below about the identity of your drive may be wrong.)
I was surprised that it was not listed as a Verbatim product, but it appears that Verbatim sometimes sells devices from other manufacturers such as Kingston Technology, and Trek Technology. The "0a16" manufacturer code identifies yours as being from Trek. I've found no information about the "2004" product code.
In order to find a low level format utility that is known to work with your drive, we need to identify the controller chip used. One might hope that this would be an exact science. There are certainly bloggers on the Web that give one the impression that it is. But such is not the case.
Given the vendor and product codes (0a16:2004 for your drive), it would be nice to just plug those numbers into a data base somewhere and find the controller chip that is used in that product.
And there is a database in Russia that does indeed let you plug those numbers in (
http://www.flashboot.ru/iflash.html). But in some cases this results in a list of many chips. And in other cases (such as your drive's 0a16:2004), nothing is found.
Apparently manufacturers use various suppliers for the controller chips that are used in a single product. That is not surprising, but it does make it hard to identify the chip using only the vendor and product codes. What is surprising is that a single vendor and product code can result in a list of devices with various memory sizes. I would have thought that a vendor would assign different product codes for drives of different sizes. But perhaps some vendors consider a product to be one product available in different sizes. It is also certainly possible that the database contains a lot of misinformation -- not surprising since at one time the database was open for anyone to add data. And it is also possible that some of the data was reported based on data from counterfeit flash drives, and so that data is not legitimate.
Anyway, searching just on the vendor code "0a16" gave a short list of flash drives described as "Verbatim Store 'n' Go", or "Verbatim Store 'n' Go Mini". So we are getting warm. Most entries indicated that these use the Trek "TD2SMG12L" controller chip.
So, did I find any utility that you might try? Yes.
I had hoped to find a utility that came from a manufacturer's web site, as was the case for the other utility that you tried. But I didn't. I am less likely to trust something downloaded from some file-sharing web site, and am reluctant to even mention any, lest your "Mini-XP" become infested with some virus.
So first I am going to suggest a newer version of the utility that you already tried. I'm not very hopeful that a newer version will work any better for you than the old one did, but I think it would be safer to try that first, since it comes from a manufacturer's web site.
Looking into the binary, I see references to many chips, so apparently this utility is not limited to one type of controller chip (which explains why someone got it to work with a non-Apacer drive). My guess is that when you got the "USB Flash disk not found", it was not because it couldn't see your flash drive, but because it didn't find a flash drive that was supported by the utility. My hope (although it's not
much hope) is that support for your drive has been added to the newest version.
A little digging turned up many versions of the utility at the Apacer web site. I'll document the full list here, but I would suggest that you not bother trying any other than the newest one, for which I've added a live link:
http://www.apacer.com/en/support/downlo ... Repair.zip
2004-04-28 225280 bytes HS20_RepairTool/Repair.exe
http://www.apacer.com/en/support/downlo ... pair_2.zip
2005-12-16 208896 bytes 2134repair_v2.3.1/Formatter.exe
http://www.apacer.com/en/support/downlo ... pair_3.zip
2006-07-28 270336 bytes Repair2611/Formatter_2611.exe
http://www.apacer.com/en/support/downlo ... .8.1.1.zip
2007-04-09 233472 bytes Repair_V2.8.1.1/Formatter.exe
http://www.apacer.com/en/support/downlo ... .9.1.1.zip
2008-03-12 503808 bytes Repair_v2.9.1.1.exe
http://www.apacer.com/en/support/downlo ... 9.1.8A.zip
2009-06-12 528384 bytes Repair_v2.9.1.8A/Formatter2.9.1.8A.exe
http://www.apacer.com/en/support/downlo ... .9.1.9.zip
2009-12-18 524288 bytes Repair_v2.9.1.9/Formatter.exe
http://www.apacer.com/en/support/downlo ... 10.1.1.zip
2010-03-29 512000 bytes Repair_v2.10.1.1/Formatter.exe
(These files also live in an alternative directory:
http://ap.apacer.com/pub/media/file/downloads/)
Again, the only one worth trying is the newest, v2.10.1.1; if that doesn't support your drive, it is unlikely (though not impossible) that the older ones will.
If that doesn't work, there are a couple of more you can try.
It looks like the best utility for the TD2SMG12L controller chip is this:
http://flashboot.ru/files/public/USBest ... 0.2.19.rar
2008-12-04 6029380 bytes Super Stick Recovery Tool V1.0.2.19.exe
(If your "Mini-XP" doesn't support .rar files, and your Puppy doesn't already have the unrar utility (i.e., the unrar command says, "bash: unrar: command not found"), you will also need to get that utility, which is available on the forum here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 167#655167)
Again, I am reluctant to suggest files from unknown web sites, but at least flashboot.ru is not just a file sharing web site, and looks fairly legitimate to me. This is the same site that has the database used earlier for looking up the flash drive controller chip. They also have a copy of the Repair_v2.9.1.1.exe file that you downloaded from the Apacer web site. I checked and verified that the one from flashboot.ru is exactly the same as the one from apacer.com, which gives me hope that nothing nasty has been added to their files. (Of course, I can make no guarantees.)
If you choose to try it, you'll need to run it in your "Mini-XP".
If your "Mini-XP" doesn't support .rar files, you can use Puppy to extract the executable like so:
1. Download the file to your /root/ directory.
2. Run these commands:
Code: Select all
mkdir /root/supper_stick
cd /root/supper_stick
unrar e /root/Super_Stick_Recovery_Tool_V1.0.2.19.rar
(Naturally, you then need to move the executable to a place where "Mini-XP" can find it.)
If this utility doesn't help, I know of one more you could try, but will wait 'till we see how this one did before I post that.
Again, I hasten to point out that I have no experience with this utility. I only know that others claimed to have used it successfully with a flash drive containing a Trek TD2SMG12L controller chip.
And I don't even know for sure if your drive has a TD2SMG12L controller chip, since I found no information on your product code (PID) "2004". I only know that all the "Verbatim Store 'n' Go" drives listed with your vendor code (VID) "0a16" used that controller chip, so maybe yours does as well.
So again I remind you that it is possible that the use of this utility
could damage your flash drive beyond repair. But since you have already tried the other utility despite a similar warning, I'm guessing you have decided that you will be no worse off than you already are if it does.
And, as we all know, it is certainly possible that we are beating a dead horse. Your drive may have been ready to send to the knackers weeks ago. I only keep making suggestions because I admire your determination to exhaust all possibilities before doing so.
Good luck.
