Hi to all,

last week my friend bought a 4 GB USB key with a so called "U3" system installed on it. Theoretically, as I could see with a quick search on the Web, this system allows to launch automatically a lot of programs stored inside that U3 system when the key is inserted in the usb slot of a PC.

But when my friend inserts the usb key, never happens and when she tried to open with a file browser the usb key, the Windows operating system shows only the full U3 file system. Moreover if she tries to format the usb key, the operation fails.

So she gave me the usb key asking me to solve the problem and format the key using a linux computer. At the beginning I thought simply to delete every partition present on the usb key and creating a newer one using fdisk command.

After the insertion of the usb key in my Ubuntu 8.04 laptop, udev (I think) automatically shown me two icons on desktop: "4.0 GB Media" and "U3 System". To be sure I ran two following commands:

me@laptop:~$ sudo mount
....
/dev/scd0 on /media/U3 System type iso9660 (ro,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=1000,utf8)
/dev/sda1 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=mixed,uid=1000,utf8,umask=077,flush)

me@laptop:~$ dmesg |tail -n 10
[ 59.951804] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 59.951810] sda: sda1
[ 59.953337] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 59.971377] Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
[ 59.980406] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[ 59.981119] sr 0:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 5
[ 59.982122] sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 48x/48x tray
[ 59.982468] sr 0:0:0:1: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0
[ 61.007031] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
[ 61.008035] ISOFS: changing to secondary root

But when I typed:

me@laptop:~$ sudo fdisk -l
....
Disk /dev/sda: 4022 MB, 4022337024 bytes
124 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1021 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 7688 * 512 = 3936256 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1021 3924693 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

linux shown me only a FAT32 file system on /dev/sda1 (the usb)
At this point I decided to run the command:

me@laptop:~$ sudo fdisk /dev/sda

to delete the existing W95 FAT32 partition and to create a new one,
believing that in this way also the iso9660 FS of the "U2" system would have been cleared. But I was wrong...
The ISO fs is still present! I also used the "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 bs=1K count=3924693" to make a "raw" cleaning of the usb key, but also this failed...

So after this long and boring explanation (forgive me) my one million $ question is: how to delete the iso fs partition/file systems present on the usb key?

Thanks in advance for your patience and for your help!

Scrat75

The only way that I know of to remove the launchpad is via u3 software which only runs on windows.
http://www.u3.com/uninstall/

Sorry, no way to blow it away, it's a protected partition. If you search this site, you'll come across another thread that says how to do this. Unfortunately, you need a Windows or Mac box, as the U3 removal tool only works on Windows or Mac.

This link http://u3uninstall.s3.amazonaws.com/U3Uninstall.exe goes straight to the tool. This link http://communities.sandisk.com/sandi...thread.id=1066 is for Mac.

Thanks michaelk, thanks TBOne!