Different approach to repair problem .. . hiring a technician?

[rudy5]

I've been in sick bay, and have had to take a break from this.
Back this morning, & spent about 30-40 minutes studying this thread & making notes.
The first step (and I'm still on it!) is copying the contents of my /home folder to an external drive. Previously I lacked a big enough flash drive (32gb not enough), and anyway it was formatted wrong. So, I went out and purchased a couple of 64gb flash drives.
Stuck the first one into a USB port, and proceeded with a quick format to the desired ext4 format.
Started copying .. . but ran out of room! After copying an unknown part of my /home contents, the command returned a string of error messages all ending in "No space left on device."
My diagnosis is that I probably should have emptied the trash before proceeding. So, I decided to go back and start again.
Easiest way to delete whatever did end up on the flash drive is a quick re-format. So I opened the GUI, selected my external drive, & initiated the same formatting command that I had ten minutes earlier, WITH ONE FATAL? DIFFERENCE: I selected the "check for bad sectors" option. The formatting screen disappeared, and so did the GUI listing of the drive I was formatting.
It's been 45 minutes. The flash drive is a bit warm, but I have no indication of any activity by this computer. Safe to say it's failed?
I don't have a lot of faith in this GUI either. Can I just use the terminal to format my external drive? Will this do the trick?

$sudo mkfs -ctv ext4 /dev/sdb1

Please advise if this command from terminal will give me a 64gb ext4 format flash drive.

[rudy5]

Because, here's what happens when I enter

$ sudo mkfs -ctv ext4 /dev/sdb1

.. . generates .. .

mke2fs 1.44.1 (24-Mar-2018)
mkfs.ext2: invalid blocks 'ext4' on device 'mkfs'

So, obviously not the correct command. Could someone please advise? I can't make a formatted 64gb flash drive from this computer (Ubuntu 18.04).

Meanwhile, I gotta do some work. In a while I'll be driving across town where I can have a look at these two 64gb drives on another Linux (22.04) install, & see if that might offer some clues.

[oldfred]

My system on reboot makes flash drive as sda, so internal drive then is temporarily sdb.
Post this:
sudo parted -l

I typically prefer to use gparted to create partitions, so I can also confirm which drive is which.

[rudy5]

Hi again Oldfred,
Disaster. After giving up on being able to format my 64gb drives as ext4, I packed them up, & tried to reboot the Dell with 18.04 .. . nothing. Nothing. Just the Dell logo, and a black screen. A couple of re-power-ups, same result.
I put my 22.04 install drive in the USB port, & re-booted .. . but 22.04 thinks my hard drive is virgin, no data. ***?
This means that until further notice, I don't actually have a computer at home; just this work one (with Ubuntu 22.04).
Is there any special command that I need to execute, is my data there but for some reason I can't see it from the Ubuntu 22.04 flash drive?
Anyway, for my next trick, I'm going to try to format these 64gb flash drives (ext4 format) from this 22.04 installation. Wish me luck.

[rudy5]

Here's what happens when I re-start:
Dell logo. Disappears. Single line of text at top of screen:

UBUNTU: Clean, 496642/6553600 files, 25954163/26208768 blocks

.. . and that's it. Nothing further happens.

How should I understand this?

[rudy5]

PS --- This (work) Dell desktop / Ubuntu 22.04 can't see the 64gb thumb drives *at all*.

[oldfred]

Ubuntu: Clean is just a message saying it sees partition and has no reported issues.

UEFI or BIOS boot.
Can you get grub menu?
If only one install, menu does not automatically appear unless you change grub settings.
But if UEFI you can press escape, just after Dell logo & before grub menu normally appears. Timing may require several tries.
If BIOS, you hold shift key from Dell logo until grub menu appears.
And then can you boot recovery mode, or second entry in grub menu?

[rudy5]

PS --- This (work) Dell desktop / Ubuntu 22.04 can't see the 64gb thumb drives *at all*.

[rudy5]

I now have three flash drives -- a 32gb, and two brand new 64gb --- that I tried to format as ext4, *think* I formatted as ext4 --- certainly intended that --- and even tried to copy my home folder (= only 16 gigs, so I don't know why it wants 32gb space, and even "runs out of disk space" on a 64gb drive).
But I can't access / read this drive now either on my home Dell XPS13 / 18.04 (which now may be no more), nor here on this Dell Optiplex / 22.04 system.
The Mac across the room can see the drives, but recognizes that it's a format it doesn't support.
The Windows machine across the room can see the drives, but recognizes that it's a format it doesn't support.
The Linus machines can't even get that far.
??

[TheFu]

You've been asked to run some commands and post the results here. Until that happens, we are guessing and you don't want anyone, including yourself, guessing which partition has which data when you are running format/mkfs commands. I fear the worst has happened due to a mistake.

So, boot from a flash drive and run those 2, requested, commands, then post the output back there and use the Advanced editor to post it all inside forum code tags.

What are the commands?

  lsblk -f
  sudo parted -l

I used forum code tags (#) is the button to post those commands. If your post doesn't look like that and make all the columns line up like they do in your terminal, then please fix it.

Is there a reason you keep trying to use flash storage for backups? That's a terrible idea. Spend the $40 and get a cheap, external, USB 2TB HDD that spins and is USB3. You'll need to set it up with ext4, but after that, you'll have plenty of room for backups and probably won't need to replace it for 8+ yrs.