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Software - Support => Installing Software => Topic started by: Alex on December 04, 2014, 10:55:22 AM

Title: [SOLVED] Trouble with new USB
Post by: Alex on December 04, 2014, 10:55:22 AM
I recently bought a new USB stick and in an effort to password protect it (unsuccessfully) I did something nasty to it which results in the following message when i try to mount it (metaphorically):

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-CE95_54808372.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-CE95_54808372.html)

No idea what it means, except for the fact that the new USB appears to be unusable now.

Anyone help?

:(

Thanks
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Scott on December 04, 2014, 11:21:28 AM
Hi Alex,

Assuming there's nothing on the drive that needs saving, you're best (and least time consuming) option is probably to reformat and start over. Use GParted (menu > system > partition drives) for partitioning. Does that help?

~Scott
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Alex on December 04, 2014, 03:15:14 PM
No reformatting does not change a thing, unfortunately. But thanks for the suggestion. I have tried a few things from google searches but none have helped so far. I have a feeling that somehow i have deleted the original bit of software that comes with the drive that makes it work...and now it's broken.

Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Wirezfree on December 04, 2014, 04:22:36 PM
Hi,

Just to expand on Scott(0)'s suggestion.
You can try this to see if it helps.

Plug in the USB, Open gparted.
Make sure you select the USB stick in drop down list, top right "sdc.?"
Then Select the "Device" menu option.
Then Select "Create partition table"
and apply that. It will warn about deleting everything O.K it.
That will in effect completely put the USB stick to a virgin condition.

Then highlight the "Free Space" and create a new partition using all the space.
You can either format it EXT4 if only using on Linux
or FAT32 if you want to using across platforms.

Dave
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Alex on December 06, 2014, 04:49:45 AM
I am pretty sure that is what I did. But to be extra sure I did it again:

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-A63A_5482D00B.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-A63A_5482D00B.html)

I don't know why It only shows up as 14.9Gb and what the yellow region is, but i have noticed similar with other USB sticks.

When i try to mount it I get the same  or similar message again:

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-CD5D_5482D02B.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-CD5D_5482D02B.html)

I have tried contacting the manufacturer but i hold little hope as on their site they only mention downloads with respect to Windows and Mac.

Thanks
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Jerry on December 06, 2014, 04:58:32 AM
How big is the stick?
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Wirezfree on December 06, 2014, 07:56:59 AM
Code: [Select]
I don't know why It only shows up as 14.9Gb and what the yellow region is, but i have noticed similar with other USB sticks.
Hi,
IIRC the "Yellow" area is reserved it's where it creates it's own in internal file/allocation structure.

It's possible you unfortunately have a dodgy/broken stick.?
((There are some dodgy sticks out there that are manufacture defects, but have been relabled))

One last test, use gparted again, remove the partition table.
This time create a new partition starting at 2 but with a size of only 1024
See if that works, if not, looks like it maybe broken.

If it works repeat, but start at 2 and make it 4096
If it works repeat, but start at 2 and make it 8192

Dave
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Scott on December 06, 2014, 10:20:52 AM
Hi Alex,

Referring to post #3 by Wirezfree, did you include this step?
Note: make sure you're on the proper device.

(http://i.imgur.com/KJz4Iv6.png)
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Wirezfree on December 06, 2014, 10:49:39 AM
Code: [Select]
Referring to post #3 by Wirezfree, did you include this step?
Thanks Scott(0)
Like they say, "a picture paints a 1000 words"
Dave
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: gold_finger on December 06, 2014, 02:57:56 PM
Have seen posts like this before and only thing that ended up working was to zero out USB with dd first, then reformat.  Might as well give it a shot.

Plug USB in and make sure you know which device name is assigned to it.  If sudo blkid doesn't show it, open GParted and find out the name from there.  (Then close GParted.)  For this example I'll use "/dev/sdb" for name of USB.  If that's not correct for you, change it in command below.

To write zeros to whole USB, open a terminal and enter this command:
Code: [Select]
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=4K conv=notrunc
Wait until it completes (could take many minutes), then unplug drive.

Plug drive back in, open GParted -- create new "msdos" partition table, then make partition(s) you want on it.

Hopefully that works.
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Alex on December 07, 2014, 04:41:52 PM
Have seen posts like this before and only thing that ended up working was to zero out USB with dd first, then reformat.  Might as well give it a shot.

Plug USB in and make sure you know which device name is assigned to it.  If sudo blkid doesn't show it, open GParted and find out the name from there.  (Then close GParted.)  For this example I'll use "/dev/sdb" for name of USB.  If that's not correct for you, change it in command below.

To write zeros to whole USB, open a terminal and enter this command:
Code: [Select]
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=4k conv=notrunc
Wait until it completes (could take many minutes), then unplug drive.

Plug drive back in, open GParted -- create new "msdos" partition table, then make partition(s) you want on it.

Hopefully that works.

As this was the only suggestion yet untried, I followed it to the letter (almost, it did not let me unless I used sudo first) ...then nothing happened except for as the screenshot shows for almost 1/2 hour (just about the longest i can manage to stare at a screen without anything happening lol) Here is a screen shot:

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-CB51_5484C9FB.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-CB51_5484C9FB.html)

And Yes I did enter the password and pressed 'enter' ...

The fun started when I replugged in the USB stick - everything froze solid and drastic re-start was necessary. Now i hesitate to re-plug in the evil USB stick (it must be cursed!) and lament the loss of $16 and move forward...with my life. A formal burning at the stake of the bewitched USB is scheduled for early afternoon. RIP

:)
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: gold_finger on December 07, 2014, 05:01:22 PM
Alex,

Sorry -- forgot the "sudo".  Duh!  (I'll go back and edit last post to correct it.)

Also forgot to warn you that "dd" will not display any kind of feedback until it's done.  I haven't used it to wipe a USB in a while, so was just guessing at amount of time it would take.

Am running a test for myself on an old, crappy, dead 2GB USB stick to see how long it takes.  Will report back with results.

P.s.  You may want to hold off throwing it away until I post back -- good chance it just had not completed yet.  Not sure why it froze the computer though.
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Jerry on December 07, 2014, 05:05:28 PM
Pulling out any storage media is a no-no when it is zeroing out. Typically a zero out will take anywhere from an hour to several hours. Best to start this before you go to bed, then check it in the morning. But chances are that the drive is now kaput due to pulling it out mid-job. This will be also why your system froze. As gold_finger said, don't throw it out just yet, it would be a terrible waste of the support people have offered up to this point.
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: gold_finger on December 07, 2014, 05:47:43 PM
Sorry for delay -- had to run test twice.  After first run, got some errors and had to force stop of dd process.  Realized that I had mistakenly used lowercase "k" in "bs-k".  It should have been uppercase "K".  Corrected my prior post with that and just ran a second test without errors this time.

My 2GB USB took a little over 8 minutes to zero out.  Just from that test, I'd say your 16GB USB will take a little over an hour.  Your computer CPU will make a difference too -- it may be slower or faster than mine, so these numbers are just a rough estimate.  Just so you have something to go by, the computer I ran this on is running an AMD Phenom II Quad-Core 3.2GHz processor.

My dead USB stick was then able to be reformatted in GParted.  (It threw out error messages and couldn't be mounted before.)  So, it appears to be working again ... for now at least.  So, I'd say give it another shot on yours and just wait until it completes knowing that it will take quite a bit longer than we both initially thought it would.
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Alex on December 08, 2014, 01:35:44 AM
As Jerry mentioned it would be a pity to waste all the good advice I have received up to now so I will repeat the process and see what happens...will report back. Meanwhile a sincere thank you to all of you who are so willing to offer help - it's one of the main things that makes this distro one of the best...soon to be the best :)
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Alex on December 08, 2014, 01:59:19 AM
Well that looked much better - the USB flashed its weak LED at me, for the first time since I broke it. It too 16 minutes, I feel positive about it. Now to Gparted...

:)
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Alex on December 08, 2014, 02:11:05 AM
Used Gparted:

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-CB6B_54854E39.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-CB6B_54854E39.html)

I'm not sure what to do with the unlocated part...

Tried to mount it, and...got the same message (as above)  again:

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-04A8_54854EDD.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-04A8_54854EDD.html)

:(
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Alex on December 08, 2014, 02:51:21 AM
I also tried "sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb" and this is what I get, it means nothing to me lol

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-24BC_5485584E.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-24BC_5485584E.html)

Thought it might help...
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: bobw on December 08, 2014, 03:28:11 AM
This doesn't help with your problem, Alex, but it may be of interest to other people who want to "zero out" a storage device.  Apparently, the process can also be achieved using Gnome-disk-utiliity (aka Disks), with the advantage that you are using a GUI rather than a terminal and it tells you what it is doing and reports % progress.  You select ""Overwrite existing data with zeros (slow)" in the Erase box when formatting the device.


On my quite low-end system it took 21 seconds to do a 1G test partition on the hard drive (compared to about 1 second for a standard reformat).
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: gold_finger on December 08, 2014, 06:40:23 AM
Alex,

Just to be sure I know exactly what has happened, are you saying that you re-ran dd command (with fixed "bs=4K") and it only took 16 minutes?

Your fdisk -l output is not showing anything unusual/(wrong) -- just that there is one FAT32 partition on USB.

The GParted pic you posted -- is that what it looked like after zeroing out?  Or did you add that FAT32 partition to it yourself?

If the FAT32 partition was on there after running dd command, something is not right.  There should be nothing at all on the USB after dd completes -- not even a partition table.  If dd ran correctly, you'd need to create a new partition table on USB first, then create new partition(s) on it.

(As an aside, I have no idea whether "Disks" program works and/or if it truly zeros out a drive.  I've never used it for anything myself.)

As far as your error message goes, can you tell us exactly how you are trying to mount the drive?  What are the exact steps you're trying?

Reason I ask is because GParted pic shows that it is currently mounted at "/mnt".  So I'm wondering two things:
P.s.  I've confirmed that my previously dead 2GB USB is back to working now.  I burned live ISO to it, booted and did an installation from it.
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Alex on December 08, 2014, 07:35:44 AM
Quote
Just to be sure I know exactly what has happened, are you saying that you re-ran dd command (with fixed "bs=4K") and it only took 16 minutes?

Yes I re-ran the corrected dd command and it was finished in 16 minutes

Quote
The GParted pic you posted -- is that what it looked like after zeroing out?  Or did you add that FAT32 partition to it yourself?

I followed your instructions. These were: to repartition the drive using Gparted after zeroing. I used fat32 to make it compatible with Win.

Quote
As far as your error message goes, can you tell us exactly how you are trying to mount the drive?  What are the exact steps you're trying?

I plug in the drive

It shows up on the desk top

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-6F2E_54859AA2.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-6F2E_54859AA2.html)

I right click on it

I left click on the "mount volume"

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-2AEE_54859AA2.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-2AEE_54859AA2.html)

Immediately I get the error message shown a few times above

I also get the same error message if I left click on the "open"

:)






Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: gold_finger on December 08, 2014, 07:54:14 AM
Sorry to say -- I'm stumped!

EDIT:  Can you plug in the USB, open Thunar file manager and look to see if it shows up under "/mnt"?  If yes, see if you can save something to it.

Aside from not knowing how/why your prior pic was showing that the USB was mounted at "/mnt" instead of "/media/alex", steps you just listed look fine and it should be working.

Can you open GParted and do Device -> Create Partition Table -> "msdos"; then make a new FAT32 partition that covers whole disk?

If not, maybe try one last time to zero it out with dd.

If still no luck, maybe you just got unlucky and ended up with a dud USB.
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: Alex on December 08, 2014, 03:00:34 PM
Quote
EDIT:  Can you plug in the USB, open Thunar file manager and look to see if it shows up under "/mnt"?  If yes, see if you can save something to it.
Yes it shows up under /mnt:

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-678D_5485FF4E.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-678D_5485FF4E.html)

But when I try to save something e'g' a tex document it does not let me:

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-8941_5485FF4E.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-8941_5485FF4E.html)


[/color]
Quote
Can you open GParted and do Device -> Create Partition Table -> "msdos"; then make a new FAT32 partition that covers whole disk?


Yes:

(http://thegomc.com/DPInew/image-32C7_5485FF4E.jpg) (http://thegomc.com/DPInew/share-32C7_5485FF4E.html)

But it still does not work.  :(

I have researched the problem online a bit and it seems that problems between Lexar USBs and Linux are not uncommon, but i do not think that is the problem here as the USB worked untill I fiddled with it - I feel that I somehow removed the part of it that tells any (it now wont even work with Windows - I tried it on my daughter's computer - it does not even 'see' it!) computer how to store data on the USB (is that the USB 'booting' software?).

I think that I should be doing something like is described in this article:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8366 (http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8366)

But I can hardly understand 1/2 of what he is talking about! LOL

:)
Title: Re: Trouble with new USB
Post by: N4RPS on December 22, 2014, 01:06:26 AM
Hello!

The article is 9 1/2 years old, and, given today's larger drives, may or may not still be relevant...

73 DE N4RPS
Rob