How To Reset Your USB Flash Drive with Linux Using the Command Line

Let’s face it, sometimes you play around too much with your devices and screw things up a little. So it’s time for a little reset…

Here’s how to fix and cleanly wipe a USB flash drive that refuses to partition:

danten@starlight:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M count=10

And voilà your USB flash drive will be good to go.

Just remember to be really careful and choose the correct /dev/sdX (the above /dev/sdb might not be the right device for you) and so you don’t accidentally wipe your main drive.