[SOLVED] unwanted partition of flash drive

[fatality_uk]

Ok cool, so it is a U3 drive.
I had to run the uninstall app in Windows. I looked, & there's no way to get round it. Download the app, run it in Vista and clear it that way.

bodhi.zazen, that bottom link doesn't work and the other two still require Windows to run the uninstall software.

[querent]

first, thanks all around

ok...none of the programs listed so far have recognized this thing as a U3 device...not through wine and not on a vista machine

I may be an idiot for not having posted this earlier, but i ran the command:

sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb -I

prior to running either of the .exe's suggested. It still mounts as two, however.

does this change things?

[querent]

hello...? have i been given up on?

[bodhi.zazen]

I solved the issue by wiping the drive clean. and re-formatting it.

[querent]

forgive a noob, but how?

[querent]

Hello...?

[bodhi.zazen]

Hello...?

You can either do it from the command line or with gparted (graphical)

gparted is on the live CD, but is not installed.

Open a terminal and enter :

sudo apt-get install gparted

Then

gksu gparted

You must unomount the usb device, but leave it plugged into the computer. You can do this from gparted as well.

Alternate is to usre fdisk

sudo fdisk <device>

Then re-format the device to a new filesystem, FAT, ext3, your choice.

[querent]

this has already taken way longer than i anticipated, but i'm frustrated that i can't gain control over my own device.

thanks to everyone, especially bodhi.zazen, for the help so far.

So, there's this:

me@mine:~$ gksu gparted
======================
libparted : 1.7.1
======================
Unable to open /dev/sdc - unrecognised disk label.

/dev/sdc seems to be the offending partition. gparted shows them both as USB devices, and they're only listed by ls /dev when the thing's plugged in.

each (sdb, sdc) appear totally unallocated under gparted, with sdc at 0.0 B.

i know nothing of fdisk, and can make no sense of it. i'll go into the man now, buy any quick advice is always helpful.

[bodhi.zazen]

LOL

If all else fails there is always DBAN

Be careful with that thing :

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

[querent]

this looks heavy. i'm intrigued. thanks.