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s_oneill
n00b
Joined: 07 Apr 2004
Posts: 18
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 Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:59 am Post subject: Filesystem trouble on USB memory stick |
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Hi there, I have a simple USB memory stick, which I use to transfer stuff between my gentoo laptop and my windows XP workstation (not my choice !).
I've had some trouble with the filesystem on the stick and I think, it boils down to having two different partition tables on the stick. I've now tried to re-format the whole thing with fdisk and on the XP box. On the XP box (as FAT, not FAT32), after formatting, I have a workable filesystem, BUT the old files show up on the disk AFTER re-formatting !?! On the gentoo box, mount -t vfat /dev/sda /mnt/usbstick ... I get: | Code: | | mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda, or too many mounted file systems. |
, however if I use mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbstick ... it mounts with no problems and doesn't show the old files .....
Questions:
a) I should mount the stick as /sda rather than /sda1 shouldn't I ???
b) Can I somehow 'nuke' the entire disk, to be sure, that all partition tables, boot sectors etc are gone ... and start with a clean slate/stick.
Kind regards
Soren |
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fangorn
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Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1886
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| Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 9:12 am Post subject: |
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What I would do is.
Delete all partitions on the stick using linux fdisk.
Create one primary partition /dev/sda1
format it using mkdosfs /dev/sda1 (emerge dosfstools)
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usbstick
This should work under windows without problems (hey, you never know, its windows  ) |
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s_oneill
n00b
Joined: 07 Apr 2004
Posts: 18
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| Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:04 am Post subject: Why sda1 not sda |
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..Im a little confused as to why you shoulkd mount /dev/sda1 and not merely /dev/sda ??
Kind regards
Soren |
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fangorn
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Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1886
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| Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:18 am Post subject: |
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Because any partition you create has the standard numbering scheme. Wanna know more about partitions see the installation handbook "preparing the disc" IIRC
/dev/sda is the whole device. Usefull if you wanna do a backup of everything you have on the device with dd, but useless otherwise.
Windows can use small removable drives without partition (Microcrap calls this "SuperDisc"), but why would anyone do this if using a single partition is much more simple and much more flexible  |
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