usb drive is not detected on 12.04 LTS

Question

I have 15GB Kingston Pendrive. And it is not detected in Ubuntu and remain hung up in Windows.

sudo fdisk -l output:

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1   976773167   488386583+  ee  GPT

Disk /dev/sdb: 15.5 GB, 15479597056 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 14762 cylinders, total 30233588 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe31d9cb0

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

Answer 1

I'm assuming /dev/sdb in the above output is your USB drive. If so, it does not contain valid partitions and thus needs to be formatted.

This post here on Ask Ubuntu has all the details on how to format a USB drive.

Answer 2

Similarly to @drc it looks like /dev/sdb is your USB drive and the partition table has been damaged.

I would advise installing gparted

1. creating a new partition table on the device
2. create a new partitioncreate a new partition
3. Format partition (If using Windows/Linux probably FAT32)]

*Please note, by doing this you will loose the data on the drive