Unable to format USB after use in Samsung TV

wimorrison · Jun 20, 2022

I bought a new Samsung TV recently and since inserting some USB drives into the TV they drives have become useless. I cannot read from them on the TV, nor am I able to reformat or reuse them on a Windows 11 22H2 22621.160 build machine.

Disk Manager will see that the drive is inserted (Drive H: ) but I cannot format the drive using Windows Tools, RUFUS will not even see that the drive is present, and whilst USB Low Level Format 5.01 from MajorGeeks sees the drive even after 2 hours it will not format any of the drives

Can anyone suggest how to recover these drives after use in the Samsung TV seems to have 'destroyed' them?

NavyLCDR · Jun 20, 2022

Since disk management shows it as "no media", you are likely going to need to just toss the USB flash drive and replace it.

Berton · Jun 20, 2022

When Windows can't work with a USB drive my tool is a GPARTED LiveCD that can work with a number of formats, delete and create. The disc is made from a downloaded .iso file. It runs a 'lite' version of Linux and works outside of Windows. I had an incident with a client's 2TB USB Thumb drive, unbranded and seemingly "too good a price" that would fail at half capacity, never could get it over 1TB.

GParted -- Download

gparted.org

Anibor_11 · Jun 20, 2022

Try to "clean" the UFD from diskpart.

Erase Disk using Diskpart Clean Command in Windows 10

How to Erase a Disk using Diskpart Clean Command in Windows 10

www.tenforums.com

Berton · Jun 20, 2022

One thing I forgot to mention, all the USB Thumb drives I've worked with came formatted as FAT32 as are SDHC cards for cameras, Windows can't do over 32GB but GPARTED can. Don't know if the TV needs to do the same but the SDHC cards used in cameras need to be formatted/reformatted in the camera, not in the computer.

jimbo45 · Jun 20, 2022

Hi there
go into diskpart
list disk
if you see the USB drive then select disk xxx
clean
create partition primary
format fs=fat32 quick
assign letter=Q
exit

if that fails the USB is probably defective.

Cheers
jimbo

wimorrison · Jun 20, 2022

Thanks for all the helpful replies, unfortunately it looks like Samsung TVs simply eat USB drives and spit them out as useless junk.

I have not been able to recover any of the 3 drives it has wrecked, and not even the TV will recognise or use them. The drives were all new before installing them in the TV which said it was formatting them, they worked once and then became toast.

Searching around the internet suggests that this is a known issue with Samsung’s ‘smart’ TVs so it may pay everyone to be careful with them.

BTW, Samsung denies that there is an issue …

Wynona · Jun 20, 2022

wimorrison said:
Thanks for all the helpful replies, unfortunately it looks like Samsung TVs simply eat USB drives and spit them out as useless junk.

I have not been able to recover any of the 3 drives it has wrecked, and not even the TV will recognise or use them. The drives were all new before installing them in the TV which said it was formatting them, they worked once and then became toast.

Searching around the internet suggests that this is a known issue with Samsung’s ‘smart’ TVs so it may pay everyone to be careful with them.

BTW, Samsung denies that there is an issue …

Wow! I have a Samsung TV that's a couple years old. I've never used a flash drive in it, but have used it with a computer to play online stuff.

wimorrison · Jun 20, 2022

I can also (or could) play files recorded onto a drive such as AVI, MP4, etc but if the drive was used to record TV then it would do it once and thereafter becomes completely foobarred

Moral is, don’t try to record using the TV.

clam1952 · Jun 20, 2022

Not as bad but have a similar issue with my JVC smart TV with usb sticks, when inserting it in a PC USB port, I forget the exact message but it offers to repair the drive, click OK and it's fixed instantly with all content intact, very odd. I avoid using USB drives thumb drives in that TV now.

Anibor_11 · Jun 20, 2022

wimorrison said:
I can also (or could) play files recorded onto a drive such as AVI, MP4, etc but if the drive was used to record TV then it would do it once and thereafter becomes completely foobarred

Moral is, don’t try to record using the TV.

It´s not possible to record protected content. But, obviously, no damage should result from trying.

wimorrison · Jun 20, 2022

Anibor_11 said:
It´s not possible to record protected content. But, obviously, no damage should result from trying.

It is possible, and permitted for free-to-air channels in the UK, to either time-slip by the capacity of your storage, or for storing and later viewing. This capability is provided on most smart TVs sold in the UK and Europe.

You cannot however watch the recorded programs on another device.

imanlien2020 · Jun 20, 2022

wimorrison said:
Thanks for all the helpful replies, unfortunately it looks like Samsung TVs simply eat USB drives and spit them out as useless junk.

I have not been able to recover any of the 3 drives it has wrecked, and not even the TV will recognise or use them. The drives were all new before installing them in the TV which said it was formatting them, they worked once and then became toast.

Searching around the internet suggests that this is a known issue with Samsung’s ‘smart’ TVs so it may pay everyone to be careful with them.

BTW, Samsung denies that there is an issue

wimorrison said:
I bought a new Samsung TV recently and since inserting some USB drives into the TV they drives have become useless. I cannot read from them on the TV, nor am I able to reformat or reuse them on a Windows 11 22H2 22621.160 build machine.

Disk Manager will see that the drive is inserted (Drive H: ) but I cannot format the drive using Windows Tools, RUFUS will not even see that the drive is present, and whilst USB Low Level Format 5.01 from MajorGeeks sees the drive even after 2 hours it will not format any of the drives

Can anyone suggest how to recover these drives after use in the Samsung TV seems to have 'destroyed' them?

View attachment 31895

I was trying to use an external drive for my Android/Google tv which is new and it worked but everytime i turned off the tv and back on again later I had to unplug and replug it back in to the TV. Also the first time i did it(formatted and inserted) it worked once and then went defective. I was told by a guy at best buy that tvs are not meant to use usb storage anything. So I no longer do it anymore. I just keep my apps to a minimum. Not sure if you have a AndroidTV but if you do dont waste your time trying to use usb for storage in my opinion but hey maybe others here disagree and have ways to make it work IDK.

Unable to format USB after use in Samsung TV

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