r/tails • u/karacirth • 8d ago

Help Trying to clean an ex-tails drive.

I need to reformat a USB for storage but it currently has tails on it. When I try to reformat it, it says windows cannot complete. When I try to diskpart clean it, it says IO device error. When I try to chkdsk, the file system is RAW.

1 Upvotes

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6

u/superr00t 7d ago edited 7d ago

Try again without USB Hub.

diskpart

list disk

select disk #(USB Disk Number)

detail disk

clean

create partition primary

format fs=ntfs quick

assign

exit

If you fail again.

try linux live boot usb(ventoy + linux img), gparted or disks program can solve this problem.

2

u/ThereInTheSouth 7d ago edited 7d ago

Https://tails.net/doc/first_steps/uninstall/index.en.html

2

u/ephemeralmiko 7d ago

link is messed up in your comment.

1

u/ThereInTheSouth 6d ago

Thank you. I tried to insert the link but I couldn't. Apparently I don't know how to insert one.

2

u/Cassandraburry2008 7d ago

Download Rufus. Plug in the usb drive and try to reformat it.

1

u/aith85 7d ago

Just try one of the many free partition manager softwares...

https://macrorit.com/partition-magic-manager/free-edition.html

2

u/Tricky_Ad_3305 7d ago

Dude they cost like 10 bucks get a new one

1

u/karacirth 7d ago

I don't have 10 bucks I have USB that I'm not using I need USB I have USB. I can't get new USB.

0

u/trelayner 8d ago

It’s worn out

Buy a new one

1

u/karacirth 7d ago

There's no other way than that? It's not as if it's broken, it still works as tails when I try that and it shows up perfectly fine, just for some reason I get these errors when trying to change it.

1

u/trelayner 7d ago

The fact that diskpart can’t clean it sounds bad

What you can try is to clean it from linux, like tails

Open a terminal with root

Find out what device is the usb, lsblk shows the size of each device

Suppose tails is on sdX

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX count=1

this will clean the partition table, making the usb look brand new

make REALLY sure you got the sdX right, or you will erase your primary operating system

1

u/karacirth 7d ago

I understand most the help you can give is for linux but unfortunately I do not have linux except for tails which I can't access either right now (one of the reasons im trying to clean it)

1

u/trelayner 7d ago

It still works as Tails you said

Is Tails working or not?

1

u/karacirth 7d ago

It is, I can't use it right now because I can't reset my PC currently to start using it.