wrong size reported on usb stick (8MB)
Today, someone who had problems with his usb flash drive
showed it to me. I plugged it in my linux box. When the command Code:
cat /proc/partitions Code:
... I deleted all the partitions (4 in all) and recreated a single partition taking up the whole drive and marked it as c (win32 vfat) I exited fdisk (w) and formatted the new partition Code:
mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/sdb1 Code:
mount /mnt/sdb1 I don't know the real size of the stick but it should be at least 4GB I think Does anybody have a clue on what's happening there? |
@ Reply
Hi there,
Lets try the following: 1. fdisk /dev/sdb 2. Delete all the partitions it is showing up there. 3. Create a new partition and let the start and end of the cylinder to be default (whatever it prompt) 4. Write it to partition table. 5. mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1 6. mkdir /mnt/usb 7. mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb 8. df -h (and let us know the output) |
Also, the output of fdisk -l /dev/sdb could help.
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This might help in finding the problem ......
-What is the brand name of usb flash drive and is it genuine? Because there are counterfeit usb flash drive that will say 8Gb when in fact the actual capacity is very little. The counterfeiters change some config on the flash drive, so when plugged in the OS will report the advertised amount, but when you are saving data it will take unusually long time to save and you will not be able to save close to advertised amount or you will get a read/write errors. -Lastly is the usb flash drive over the hill? Flash drive memory cells have a certain read/write cycle lifespan after which the cell become unusable, so if this flash drive have gone through lot of read/write cycles then then it is on it's way out. -If above is not applicable and what others said did not help, try repartition in a win PC and format and see ......... . |
I ran gparted, selected the device (/dev/sdb)
deleted the single partition I previously created with fdisk Here's what gparted reports Code:
Partition File System Size Used Unused Flags I ran fdisk to delete the partition: Code:
fdisk /dev/sda and formatted it with 'mkfsdos -F 32' The second time I recreated a single partition of linux type and formatted it (ext3). df reported Code:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on Quote:
It's pretty worn out but it looks like something like PNY is written on it. As for the capacity, even if the manufacturer boasts 8G it should be at least 1GB. As far as now the smallest capactiy is 128MB Quote:
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Another strange thing.
I formatted the flash drive in vfat. I inserted it on a Windows XP system. The Property dialog displayed this info used space: 7209984 bytes 6.87 MB available space: 0 bytes And yet the disk is empty. Next I inserted it in a linux box and copied a file on it. I reinserted the stick in the XP machine and my file was there (it's a simple text file of about 1140 bytes). |
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