Problem with a read/write access at USB flashdisk A-Data RB19

[3xit5]

I have a problem regarding this USB 2.0 flashdisk A-Data RB19, 4 GB (rubber sheath):

http://www.adata.com.tw/adata_en/product_show.php?ProductNo=AR19ZZZOR

After I had been trying to write a file at it (in OS Win XP SP2, build 2600) a strange disk failure occured having caused that I can neither read from it nor write at it ever since. OS mounts (attaches) the flashdisk on, however for some reason it just ignores all of my attempts to read from/write at it.

Is is possible for the whole FAT filesystem to be damaged or is it a case just with a couple of damaged clusters ? It is not possible to format the flashdisk via the native OS Windows Format utility.

I downloaded the special formatting utility designed to be used just with my flashdisk's model from the manufacturer's website but after having it run it returned back (after a considerable time) the error message that no flashdisk was attached (although it was). I just hope it did not go off definitivelly :-/

In advance, thanks to anyone for your help !

 

[Rakewell]

Does it show up at all under disk management via services?

 

[3xit5]

Yeah, it does, however, when trying to get it formatted, win system console (through which I can access the Disk management win utility) simply freezes up

 

[myocardia]

USB flash drives can be formatted through My Computer. If yours won't, there's something wrong with it.

 

[3xit5]

I'm afraid this problem has nothing to do with the win explorer environment or whatever else win GUI environment that the windows-native formatting utility is run from - the point is that the flashdrive isn't simply possible to be re-formatted again.

Either it ran out of pre-calculated number of writing cycles (which I kind of doubt once I own it since the beginning of 11/2007) or there may be some FAT32-filesystem-related problem (unreadable clusters or something) with the flashdisk.

Well, I must admit that I don't really know now what action to take about that, once I kept chiefly personal data on it (having mirrored backups from other flashdisks by it).

I think that in near future I'll probably have to burn the flashdisk beyond the possibility for anyone else to recover data back because I cannot simply reclaim it and it 'd be pointless to take the non-functional flash always with me :-(