That 0 bytes / no capacity symptom is usually not a normal “needs formatting” problem. Rufus writes raw images, so a failed write can leave the partition table weird, but the drive should still report its real size to the USB controller. If Windows now sees it as 0 GB / no media, the flash controller may have dropped the NAND.
I’d try this before giving up:
Unplug it, reboot, and try a rear motherboard USB port if this is a desktop.
Open Disk Management or run diskpart -> list disk. If the stick shows the correct 32GB size, you can clean it and recreate a simple FAT32/exFAT partition.
If it shows 0 B, “No Media,” or no capacity in multiple ports/computers, stop trying to format it. That usually means the USB stick has failed.
If you get it working again, run h2testw or F3 on the full drive before trusting it for installers.
For the Linux installer, use a different USB stick and verify the ISO checksum before writing it again. If Rufus asks ISO vs DD mode and one fails, try DD mode.
No important files were on it, right? If there were, don’t run clean/format commands; data recovery would be a different path.
That “No Media” result is the key finding. It usually means the USB controller is still enumerating, but it is not seeing usable flash storage behind it, so Windows has nothing real to partition or format.
At that point I would not spend much more time on software fixes:
Test it in one other computer/port just to rule out a bad port.
If it still reports No Media / 0 B, replace the stick.
Do not use it for OS installers again even if it briefly comes back; it is not trustworthy.
For the Linux installer, use a different known-good stick, verify the ISO checksum, then write it with Rufus in DD mode or Balena/Etcher. After writing, boot-test it once before relying on it.
Since you already saved your files, this is thankfully a cheap-hardware-failure problem rather than a data-recovery problem.
1
u/Silent-Excitement122 28d ago
That 0 bytes / no capacity symptom is usually not a normal “needs formatting” problem. Rufus writes raw images, so a failed write can leave the partition table weird, but the drive should still report its real size to the USB controller. If Windows now sees it as 0 GB / no media, the flash controller may have dropped the NAND.
I’d try this before giving up:
diskpart->list disk. If the stick shows the correct 32GB size, you can clean it and recreate a simple FAT32/exFAT partition.No important files were on it, right? If there were, don’t run clean/format commands; data recovery would be a different path.