[Novalug] usb sticks

donjr djr1952@hotpop.com
Wed Jul 11 10:28:12 EDT 2007


On Wed, 2007-07-11 at 09:15 +0000, The Doctor wrote:
> gregory pryzby wrote:
> > I got a 2GB (no name from MicroCenter) USB stick and is 'acting
> > weird'/
> > 
> > I can put about 400 files (500MB) and it says it is out of space. I
> > tried to look at the FS w/ fdisk -l and it is 'all hosed'.
> > 
> > I am not sure if I should format it,  but if so, I need to use it on
> > Mac and Linux.
> > 
> > # fdisk /dev/sdb1
> 
> <hosed partition table deleted for brevity>
> 
> I've run into that a couple of times with the older 1GB keys.
  <SNIP>

Except the reason for what looked like a hosed partition table was
because he was telling 'fdisk' to look at the wrong device.

 According to Linux Standard Base(LSB) naming standards /dev/sdb1 would
be the first PARTITION on the second SCSI disk device see:
  <http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/devices.html>

IOW
  The 'fdisk' listing was in the same effect as if you did something
like:
      /sbin/fdisk -l /boot/vmlinuz-{your current kernel}

   {And yes you can safely run the above command as a regular user.}

   Or so much meaningless output ....
   Since both the data that makes up the file that represents the kernel
and the data within the first block of the "first partition" of a device
are not normally meant to be interrupted in that way.
 {-: It's possible to create a complete device image at either location,
     but it's far from a standard location for such information to
     exists. :-}

Also from other comment on this mailing list his problem of not being
able to fully fill the device with file(s) was most likely because he
was trying to create to many files in the root directory of the device.

  FAT {the default file system format for USB memory devices} and a
number of the other disk drive formats have a limit on the number of
files that can be created in the root directory of the file system.

So reformatting the device would most likely of made no difference,
unless he also changed the layout {as in names "think path"} of the
files he is placing on the devices.

<sheepish GRIN>
So try again "Dr. Who" with maybe even a different sonic screwdriver.
<sheepish GRIN>

--  
-- 
 Don E. Groves, Jr. 

$ /usr/games/fortune : A vivid and creative mind characterizes you.



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