[SOLVED] how do I make my USB stick into r/w in Fedora

bscho · 07-21-2016, 07:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yancek

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Do you want just one partition on the device? Windows or Linux filesystem? There's no reason you should not be able to do that with any formatting tool. I don't know why anyone would see a problem with multiple partitions on a flash drive. That is being done all the time and I have a number of flash drives like that myself.

Do you get any warning message at all when you try to access it in windows? Does it just say read-only or is it a problem mounting it?

I wanted a single partion but since I reformatted the ext4 as ntfs I am happy to have the two partitions.

There were no warnings I coulldn't delete or paste anything to the device. It now works fine and lists as my files and my files2.

Thanks everyone helping out with your info which has been very useful.

ferrari · 07-21-2016, 04:36 PM

Actually, your fdisk output from (post #11) shows 4 partitions (which is why I asked if you'd installed a Linux distro on it at one time). From the discussion so far you only intended to use the device with a single partition. The remaining becomes wasted space.

Code:

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdf1 * 8064 61747195 61739132 29.5G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdf2 61747198 120793087 59045890 28.2G 5 Extended
/dev/sdf5 61747200 114092031 52344832 25G 83 Linux
/dev/sdf6 114094080 120793087 6699008 3.2G 82 Linux swap / Solaris

ferrari · 07-21-2016, 04:36 PM

Actually, your fdisk output from (post #11) shows 4 partitions (which is why I asked if you'd installed a Linux distro on it at one time). From the discussion so far you only intended to use the device with a single partition. The remaining becomes wasted space.

Code:

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdf1 * 8064 61747195 61739132 29.5G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdf2 61747198 120793087 59045890 28.2G 5 Extended
/dev/sdf5 61747200 114092031 52344832 25G 83 Linux
/dev/sdf6 114094080 120793087 6699008 3.2G 82 Linux swap / Solaris

bscho · 07-21-2016, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ferrari

Actually, your fdisk output from (post #11) shows 4 partitions (which is why I asked if you'd installed a Linux distro on it at one time). From the discussion so far you only intended to use the device with a single partition. The remaining becomes wasted space.

Code:

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdf1 * 8064 61747195 61739132 29.5G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdf2 61747198 120793087 59045890 28.2G 5 Extended
/dev/sdf5 61747200 114092031 52344832 25G 83 Linux
/dev/sdf6 114094080 120793087 6699008 3.2G 82 Linux swap / Solaris

The Linux partition has been formatted as NTFS so I have divided the USB into two partitions and works fine.

ferrari · 07-21-2016, 05:04 PM

Correction to my earlier statement about 4 partitions. You have a NTFS partition (/dev/sdf1), and an extended partition, itself containing a Linux filesystem (/dev/sdf5) and a swap partition (/dev/sdf6)

yancek · 07-21-2016, 06:28 PM

There is no reason why you cannot have multiple partitions and/or multiple filesystems on a flash drive which you questioned in an earlier post.

Multiple partitions will be visible and available in a Mac Or Linux system. According to everything I've read, you cannot create multiple windows filesystem partitions with the default software such as Disk Management. The default will be to show only the first partition which would need to be a windows filesystem. I found a number of sites which discusses using a tool called "bootice" which can create multiple windows partitions which will be visible/available. Apparently, you need to use it each time you want to change accesss to the partition as only one partition is available at a time. Link below, I've never used this myself so not sure how well it works.

http://www.wikihow.com/Partition-a-Thumb-Drive

Quote:

I wanted a single partion but since I reformatted the ext4 as ntfs I am happy to have the two partitions.

That seems to contradict your post #11 which shows an ntfs plus an ext4 partition. If you have somehow managed to create two ntfs partitions on your flash drive using the standard windows tools, I would suggest you post the details here as to how it was done as there apparently are a lot of people who have tried and failed and would like to know.

ferrari · 07-21-2016, 07:04 PM

@yancek: The OP's question does not relate to having multiple partitions per se. He understands that, and has already indicated that he understands that he has a Linux partition and an NTFS partition. However, the fdisk output suggests a previous (perhaps unintended) partitioning scheme. Look at the swap partition in existence for example. While the OP appears to be happy with the way things are now, I don't think that they realised (or understood) what fdisk is revealing about the current partitioning arrangement.

yancek · 07-21-2016, 09:17 PM

The original question was that the flash drive had become read only for some reason, possibly not fully shutting down fully from windows but could be any number of reasons. I'm not sure what he did actually, one ntfs partition for the entire flash or a windows partition and a Linux partition. My point is that a windows system only reads the first partition on a flash drive so if he wants ntfs, he needs one partition. The OP seems satisfied with whatever he got so...

ferrari · 07-21-2016, 09:33 PM

Quote:

The original question was that the flash drive had become read only for some reason, possibly not fully shutting down fully from windows but could be any number of reasons. I'm not sure what he did actually, one ntfs partition for the entire flash or a windows partition and a Linux partition.

Neither, if his fdisk results still reflect reality. Linux will see that there is one NTFS partition, and extended partition with swap (now wasted space) and a Linux filesystem, and as you've already pointed out Windows will see just the first.

Quote:

The OP seems satisfied with whatever he got so...

Yep. It is working, but maybe not exactly as intended