Hi,

First of all, I thank you for the great tool that you provide.

Now, I encountered a problem with an 512 GB USB flash drive that I 
bought recently and I wonder if it is related with the device itself or 
with the LUKS encryption that I put on it. I therefore seek your help. I 
have read the FAQ and searched the web for similar problems and I really 
do not know what I could do more to find a software fix to the problem.

There has been *no physical damage* to the drive and since I have used 
it very scarcely so far, I would be really surprised, if it had worn 
down already. It is a few months old and I only did occasional backups 
on it.

First, the USB drive started to change its permissions to *write 
protected* when I was doing file transfers. Then, I run the system 
utility tool fsck to check and fix the filesystem as I suspected that 
errors therein might cause the behaviour. After running fsck 
unsuccessfully, the *USB drive stopped working altogether* and I cannot 
do anything with it. My systems (Linux Mint / Debian) do detect the USB 
drive itself (lsusb, lsblk), but the partition table seems to be gone 
now. I have tried to format the drive by different methods, but any 
intent gives errors and gets stuck. Disks, Gparted, mkusb, dd... but all 
to no avail.

Please note that I do not need to recover the data, as they were backups 
only. I want to format it and use the device again, in the case that 
there is not some inherent damage to it.

My question is: Can the LUKS encryption itself cause the described 
behaviour?

I can give you more details if there is still hope to find a software fix.

Kind regards,

Kasperi