Unable to format disk: 'The system cannot find the file specified'

Posted by ACarter on Super User See other posts from Super User or by ACarter
Published on 2012-11-24T12:37:04Z Indexed on 2012/11/24 23:07 UTC
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Filed under:

partitioning

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formatting

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disk-management

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diskpart

I have a USB flash drive, which I may have mucked up, so I used DISKPART's CLEAN to clean it up. I created a simple volume, and tried to format it. (This is all using Windows' disk management.) I was told The system cannot find the file specified.

So I tried using DISKPART (as an admin):

DISKPART> select volume 9

Volume 9 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> format recommended

DiskPart has encountered an error: The system cannot find the file specified.
See the System Event Log for more information.

DISKPART>

As you can see, no luck.

When I plug the drive in, the computer makes a beep noise as though it has recognised something, but nothing appears in My Computer

How can I format the disk so I can use it again?

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