Unformatible Usb

[astromech_kuhns]

so i have a USB that was for business, it was given by a company to the sales reps for presentations and info. i think its two gigs. it has 916 free space which i was able to format. but it also has 1GB of used space for the presentation stuff. i am unable to change the permissions on it via properties.

i also was not able to use the disk utility's to edit or format the portion of it with the presentation called 2010toolkit. i am running linux and using the disk utility in it. i have even tried to use the terminal and the command chmod 755 and 777. it says changing file permisions but doesnt do it.

anyone know how to get rid of the extra stuff and format the flash drive? i cant just delete the files either. never seen a flashdrive locked down so tight. anyway if anyone knows how or if its even possible (im sure it is) it would be awesome if you could let me know!!!

[digip]

Thats really weird that linux cant format it. Ive seen issues with windows not seeing the whole drive and not being able to format the extra partitions, but linux should be able to do it with no issue. Only other thing I can think of is if the partition was somehow being seen as a cdrom or something, which is read only data perhaps, but even at that, it would mean there is some sort of hardware based controls going on, similar to a U3 drives cdrom partition. Even a U3 partition can be destroyed though or changed, so this really does seem weird. Wonder if you have to remount it in some other manner. Is it auto mounted for you? Try dismounting and then force mounting it, then fdisk the drive.

mount /dev/src /mnt/dst -o force

Edited September 6, 2010 by digip

[astromech_kuhns]

Thats really weird that linux cant format it. Ive seen issues with windows not seeing the whole drive and not being able to format the extra partitions, but linux should be able to do it with no issue. Only other thing I can think of is if the partition was somehow being seen as a cdrom or something, which is read only data perhaps, but even at that, it would mean there is some sort of hardware based controls going on, similar to a U3 drives cdrom partition. Even a U3 partition can be destroyed though or changed, so this really does seem weird. Wonder if you have to remount it in some other manner. Is it auto mounted for you? Try dismounting and then force mounting it, then fdisk the drive.

mount /dev/src /mnt/dst -o force

actually when it comes up, it does come up as a cdrom. i have the 916MB as removable storage and the 2010TOOLKIT as a cdrom.

and yes, it is weird linux cant format it. i was actulally showing someone who is considering switching to linux how much i love some of the features and he said he couldnt get the flash drive to format and i said linux can do it easily and then i couldnt. so i did think it strange.... ill try to force mount it and then fdisk. i actually tried to run fsck but it said command not recgonized???

EDIT: i ran the command and got mount: mount point /mnt/dst does not exist. do i need to replace that with something?

Edited September 6, 2010 by astromech_kuhns

[digip]

actually when it comes up, it does come up as a cdrom. i have the 916MB as removable storage and the 2010TOOLKIT as a cdrom.

and yes, it is weird linux cant format it. i was actulally showing someone who is considering switching to linux how much i love some of the features and he said he couldnt get the flash drive to format and i said linux can do it easily and then i couldnt. so i did think it strange.... ill try to force mount it and then fdisk. i actually tried to run fsck but it said command not recgonized???

EDIT: i ran the command and got mount: mount point /mnt/dst does not exist. do i need to replace that with something?

lol, yes.

mount /dev/src /mnt/dst -o force

/dev/src = /dev/idofthedevice , for example /dev/sdc1

/mnt/dst = some folder you created in /mnt/anyfoldernameyoucreatedhere

Edited September 6, 2010 by digip

[astromech_kuhns]

lol, yes.

mount /dev/src /mnt/dst -o force

/dev/src = /dev/idofthedevice , for example /dev/sdc1

/mnt/dst = some folder you created in /mnt/anyfoldernameyoucreatedhere

my bad. lol. and the device name is 2010TOOLKIT yet when i do dev/2010TOOLKIT it says special device /dev/2010TOOLKIT does not exist.....

Edited September 6, 2010 by astromech_kuhns

[digip]

my bad. lol. and the device name is 2010TOOLKIT yet when i do dev/2010TOOLKIT it says special device /dev/2010TOOLKIT does not exist.....

That is not the device name, but probably a partition label. plug it in and do lsusb and get the id. Also, you can do dmesg in a console before plugging in a device, then plugin the device and do the command again, and it will show you the latest system changes and the device detected as its plugged in. Should see something similar to:

sd 15:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

where sdb would be the device id.

You can also plug it in and type mount by itself.

CAUTION: MAKE SURE YOU MOUNT THE CORRECT USB DRIVE AND NOT A HDD OR YOU WILL FORMAT YOUR SYSTEM OR PARTITION YOU MOUNTED

Edited September 6, 2010 by digip

[astromech_kuhns]

That is not the device name, but probably a partition label. plug it in and do lsusb and get the id. Also, you can do dmesg in a console before plugging in a device, then plugin the device and do the command again, and it will show you the latest system changes and the device detected as its plugged in. Should see something similar to:

sd 15:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

where sdb would be the device id.

You can also plug it in and type mount by itself.

CAUTION: MAKE SURE YOU MOUNT THE CORRECT USB DRIVE AND NOT A HDD OR YOU WILL FORMAT YOUR SYSTEM OR PARTITION YOU MOUNTED

ahhhh, thats ok, i dont have a hard drive anyway! im running a disc os off my laptop with a broken

HD. ill try it and get back to you.

EDIT:sudo mount /dev/sda /mnt/. -o force

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda,

missing codepage or helper program, or other error

In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try

dmesg | tail or so

is what i got back. so since it is mounting as a cdrom do i even need to force mount it?

Edited September 6, 2010 by astromech_kuhns

[digip]

ahhhh, thats ok, i dont have a hard drive anyway! im running a disc os off my laptop with a broken

HD. ill try it and get back to you.

EDIT:sudo mount /dev/sda /mnt/. -o force

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda,

missing codepage or helper program, or other error

In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try

dmesg | tail or so

is what i got back. so since it is mounting as a cdrom do i even need to force mount it?

I think sda is the whole device, I think you need to give it a partition, like sda1 also in /mnt/ create a directory to mount it to, like

mkdir /mnt/crap

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/crap -o force

You might have to specify the file system type,

(try forcing it to think its ntfs) - mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/crap -o rw force

and then maybe do a make file system like mfs -t ext3 /mnt/crap or something. Maybe one of the more experienced Linux gurus can help, I'm really not that great with Linux, but I try.

What happens after plugging it in and just doing fdisk -l? Does it see the cdrom partition?

Edited September 6, 2010 by digip

[digip]

I've sent an email off to my friend Mati. He's pretty much a Linux magician so maybe he can shed some light on how to do this. I imagine the fact that the partition is read only due to the file system being listed as CDROM is part of the issue at hand and he may know how to change it if even possible. Is this a U3 drive? Might be able to use some U3 utilities to read/write to that partition or reclaim the space.

[astromech_kuhns]

yeah, i tried it again on my comptuer, i am now home using ubuntu, my native distro, and off that horrible sabyon.

so i opened up the disk utility and looked at its location it was sr1. i typed in the same command, but changed the name and got something new added i believe, it said its write protected and read only. still assuming its because it comes up as a cdrom. so the force mount will not work. but i will try to fsck it. ill report back with a edit when i poke around a bit more...

[IOSys]

You can't format it away because it is not a partition, it's a LUN that appears as a separate device.

Establish the make and model of the drives controller, then go to flashboot.ru

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=e...3Fname%3Diflash

and download the correct Mass Production Tool and use it to remove the CD-ROM device .

[digip]

Are you sure this isn't a U3 device though? Have you tried using the U3 tools to remove the partition? Search the USB forums for the Launch pad removal tool and see if that will delete it and the contents for you. If you cant find it there, I think the U3 site itself has tools for doing this and you can also check here:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Using-U3-T...n-an-8G-Cruzer/

Edited September 12, 2010 by digip

[astromech_kuhns]

i have a flash drive running the u3 system and when i plug it into linux i dont see it at all. so i havent seen it on this flash drive when i put it into linux. but i put it into a windows PC a minute ago and it didnt come up with u3 software. so im not sure. but when i stuck it in and clicked on it, it auto ran to the presentation.

[Alias]

You could probably use fdisk to kill the partition table and then reformat. You'd want to be careful with doing that though, as digip said if you choose the wrong device you could end up formatting your hardrive.

[IOSys]

You could probably use fdisk to kill the partition table and then reformat. You'd want to be careful with doing that though, as digip said if you choose the wrong device you could end up formatting your hardrive.

No you can't ..

IT IS NOT A PARTITION , its a LUN that the OS sees as a separate device .

You can only remove it by telling the controller not to present it to the OS.