Recover USB flash drive from "Sense Key : Not Ready [current]" and "Add. Sense: Medium not present"
Dear Linux-Wizards,
I have some USB flash drive that outputs the following errors, when i plug it in:
<span style="color:#323232;">VGscsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access SMI01 USB DISK01 1100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] 491520000 512-byte logical blocks: (252 GB/234 GiB)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGI/O error, dev sdc, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGBuffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 0, async page read
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGI/O error, dev sdc, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGBuffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 0, async page read
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGldm_validate_partition_table(): Disk read failed.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGI/O error, dev sdc, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGBuffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 0, async page read
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VG sdc: unable to read partition table
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 1d 4b ff 80 00 00 08 00
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGI/O error, dev sdc, sector 491519872 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x80700 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGsd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 1d 4b ff 80 00 00 08 00
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGI/O error, dev sdc, sector 491519872 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 2
</span><span style="color:#323232;">VGBuffer I/O error on dev sdc, logical block 61439984, async page read
</span>
lsblk output looks okayish, disk size is reported correctly.
<span style="color:#323232;">sdc 8:32 1 234,4G 0 disk
</span>
When i first noticed, i hoped maybe only the first Sectors are broken, but now i’m trying with ddrescue and ddrescue -d and see the similar messages:
<span style="color:#323232;">I/O error, dev sdc, sector 237172352 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x800 phys_seg 15 prio class 2
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=0s
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Sense Key : Not Ready [current]
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 Add. Sense: Medium not present
</span><span style="color:#323232;">sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] tag#0 CDB: Read(10) 28 00 0e 22 f7 00 00 00 80 00
</span>
It’s a USB-3 flash drive, so i also tried an USB-2 port hoping that maybe its some connection thing, but it did not help, I see the same error messages.
Normally USB flash drives warm a bit when reading/writing data, this one ist still cold after 25 minutes of ddrecue
Is there anything else i can do?
Backstory is: I was helping someone with their Windows PC and unplugged the stick without ejecting it, then Windows complained and i pressed to “scan and repair drive” which took a while. At 80% a error message appeared similar to: “insert medium into drive” When clicking OK the message reappeared after one or two seconds. It only stopped after unplugging the flash drive.
The user already said something about folders appearing at wrong locations at the drive, so i hope i did not kill the drive but it was already dying. But still feeling bad about this, so i want to try everything and even reach out to you :-)