[SOLVED] flash drive needs force formatting

[LTFC2020]

hi
I've done a search on this but not managed to come up with anything
I have a usb flash drice that is recognised as being unallocated by gparted
I am therefore unable to reformat the drive
It is also not listed under places where flash drives usually show up as "disk" or in the usual place on the desktop
Is there any way of force formatting a drive in ubuntu?

[Stunts]

I suppose you can try to manually mount it from the CLI and then reformat it using the CLI too.
There is a wiki on how to mount devices, but I seem to have lost the link. I can search if you fail to find it though.
As for CLI formatting use the command "mkfs".
Beware - this can be dangerous if not used properly!
Make sure you read trough the man pages. (man mkfs).
Hope this give you a hand!

[ajgreeny]

Surely you can click on the unallocated space in gparted and make a new partition and then format it to the file system you want. You can not format empty space if there is no partition there to format, if I remember correctly.

[ukripper]

Can you post output of the following commands:

sudo fdisk -l

and


sudo mount

[LTFC2020]

I tried following instructions I found here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-520821.html

and did the following in the terminal
any ideas?
the drive is currently listed as being maximum size 3mb but is actually 1 g

richard@richard-laptop:~$ sudo unmount /dev/sdb
[sudo] password for richard:
sudo: unmount: command not found
richard@richard-laptop:~$ sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb
mke2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
/dev/sdb is entire device, not just one partition!
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=1024 (log=0)
Fragment size=1024 (log=0)
384 inodes, 3068 blocks
153 blocks (4.99%) reserved for the super user
First data block=1
Maximum filesystem blocks=3145728
1 block group
8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group
384 inodes per group

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (1024 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 39 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
richard@richard-laptop:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd9aed9ae

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3742 30057583+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 11628 12161 4289355 1c Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda3 3743 11442 61850250 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 11443 11627 1486012+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 11443 11627 1485981 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 3 MB, 3145216 bytes
1 heads, 6 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 6 * 512 = 3072 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table
richard@richard-laptop:~$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x95bbc6b5.
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.

Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): m
Command action
a toggle a bootable flag
b edit bsd disklabel
c toggle the DOS compatibility flag
d delete a partition
l list known partition types
m print this menu
n add a new partition
o create a new empty DOS partition table
p print the partition table
q quit without saving changes
s create a new empty Sun disklabel
t change a partition's system id
u change display/entry units
v verify the partition table
w write table to disk and exit
x extra functionality (experts only)

Command (m for help): d
No partition is defined yet!

Command (m for help): l

0 Empty 1e Hidden W95 FAT1 80 Old Minix be Solaris boot
1 FAT12 24 NEC DOS 81 Minix / old Lin bf Solaris
2 XENIX root 39 Plan 9 82 Linux swap / So c1 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
3 XENIX usr 3c PartitionMagic 83 Linux c4 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
4 FAT16 <32M 40 Venix 80286 84 OS/2 hidden C: c6 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
5 Extended 41 PPC PReP Boot 85 Linux extended c7 Syrinx
6 FAT16 42 SFS 86 NTFS volume set da Non-FS data
7 HPFS/NTFS 4d QNX4.x 87 NTFS volume set db CP/M / CTOS / .
8 AIX 4e QNX4.x 2nd part 88 Linux plaintext de Dell Utility
9 AIX bootable 4f QNX4.x 3rd part 8e Linux LVM df BootIt
a OS/2 Boot Manag 50 OnTrack DM 93 Amoeba e1 DOS access
b W95 FAT32 51 OnTrack DM6 Aux 94 Amoeba BBT e3 DOS R/O
c W95 FAT32 (LBA) 52 CP/M 9f BSD/OS e4 SpeedStor
e W95 FAT16 (LBA) 53 OnTrack DM6 Aux a0 IBM Thinkpad hi eb BeOS fs
f W95 Ext'd (LBA) 54 OnTrackDM6 a5 FreeBSD ee EFI GPT
10 OPUS 55 EZ-Drive a6 OpenBSD ef EFI (FAT-12/16/
11 Hidden FAT12 56 Golden Bow a7 NeXTSTEP f0 Linux/PA-RISC b
12 Compaq diagnost 5c Priam Edisk a8 Darwin UFS f1 SpeedStor
14 Hidden FAT16 <3 61 SpeedStor a9 NetBSD f4 SpeedStor
16 Hidden FAT16 63 GNU HURD or Sys ab Darwin boot f2 DOS secondary
17 Hidden HPFS/NTF 64 Novell Netware b7 BSDI fs fd Linux RAID auto
18 AST SmartSleep 65 Novell Netware b8 BSDI swap fe LANstep
1b Hidden W95 FAT3 70 DiskSecure Mult bb Boot Wizard hid ff BBT
1c Hidden W95 FAT3 75 PC/IX

Command (m for help):

[coffeecat]

LTFC2020, did you read ajgreeny's post? To repeat what he said. If Gparted is showing all the space as unallocated, simply create a partition in Gparted and format it with the filesystem of your choice. Also:


richard@richard-laptop:~$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel

You need to make a disklabel before you partition. You can do that in Gparted. Just hunt around in the Gparted menu.

[LTFC2020]

hi
I set a new disk label and went to create new partition and the maximum size allowed is 0 mb - so no joy there
What I still need to do is force format the whole drive and start afresh - I think

[LTFC2020]

I took a screeshot

[unutbu]

How big is this drive supposed to be? "sudo fdisk -l" is reporting it to be 3MB:


Disk /dev/sdb: 3 MB, 3145216 bytes
1 heads, 6 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 6 * 512 = 3072 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

[coffeecat]

I've never seen unallocated space as a negative quantity before. :( I reckon you've got a dead flash drive there. Possibly the sector that holds the partition table has failed, and it's confusing Gparted. And fdisk too. I just noticed this:


Disk /dev/sdb: 3 MB, 3145216 bytes
1 heads, 6 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 6 * 512 = 3072 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table3 megabytes? I don't think so.

One last throw, although I don't hold out much hope. Randomise the whole drive with shred. Plug it in and make sure it's sdb and from a terminal:


sudo shred -vn 1 /dev/sdbDid I say to make sure it's sdb? You don't want to shred the wrong drive. :? That will take quite a while, and afterwards you could try Gparted again.

[LTFC2020]

I tried shred and it didnt take a while - it took a couple of seconds
however no difference
this is strange as the drive was originally password protected but gparted caused the problem when I tried to format it to remove the password protected partition
looks like its not going to work though and windows will also not format it so in the bin it goes
thanks to everyone for trying to sort it out

[niteshifter]

Hi,

This USB flash wouldn't be a U3 "smart" type, would it? If so, that could be your problem. You need to "un-U3" it.

For generic devices go here (http://www.u3.com/uninstall/final.aspx) to get a removal tool.

For SanDisk devices use this tool. (http://www.sandisk.com/Assets/u3/launchpadremoval.exe)

You'll need a Windows XP / Vista machine to use these tools.

[alecz20]

I know the thread is old, but I have a very similar problem.

Essentially fdisk does not write anything on the partition, nor does GParted.

To remove doubt of a bad SD card, this card works well in the NIKON Photo Camera, which formats it then it can use it fine.

I can see the pictures on the card using the camera (Windows only though), but when I put the card directly in the reader, the system says it's unformatted.

Other cards work fine.

One more thing: the card is 32 GB.

Any ideas?