Mp3 player showing wrong free space

Hi!

I have a 512MB Philips GoGear mp3 player, which has always worked find until today. Now even if I delete every file (including its SETTINGS.DAT), it says that only 269.2 out of 462.2MB space is free. (Also on Windows XP, and the mp3 player's own function "memory available" states that only 269MB space is free.)

Partitionmanager also simply shows that that 193MB is occupied. (Also, it states that the file system is "unknown", although it apparently knows FAT16...)


inux-gq7v:~ # blkid
[...]
/dev/sdc1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="Philips" TYPE="vfat"




linux-gq7v:~ # fdisk /dev/sdc -l
Note: sector size is 2048 (not 512)

Disk /dev/sdc: 485 MB, 485752832 bytes
218 heads, 34 sectors/track, 32 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 7412 * 2048 = 15179776 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 2048 bytes / 2048 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 2048 bytes / 2048 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 32 474300 6 FAT16
Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary.


What's interesting is the last line here. What does it mean? Can that be the reason for the strange behavior? Any other ideas?

I don't really dare format the drive, because I have done that once already with another mp3 player, which doesn't ever play any mp3's anymore. (Basically it has been reduced to a regular USB drive.)

(I'm using SuSE 11.3, btw., although the problem doesn't really look distro-specific in my opinion.)


Thanks,
Agoston

it is a messed up partition layout
though it should NOT be using fat16 ( this is not PRE windows95 days)

a fat32 partition would be expected

what software are you using to load mp3's on it rythombox ? gtkpod ( i have an old nano)

It appears that the device was/is formatted with FAT32,

/dev/sdc1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="Philips" TYPE="vfat"

but is now appearing as FAT16

/dev/sdc1 * 1 32 474300 6 FAT16

It appears that the two FAT tables are different. I have seen devices that seem to use the second FAT table and do not seem to update the first FAT table. When you plug the device, then the first FAT table is accessed and the device appears to be corrupted.

Try running 'dosfsck -v /dev/sdc1'. It will report any problems.

You can then try fixing problems by running 'dosfsck -rv /dev/sdc1'

Thanks allend,

dosfsck -rv /dev/sdc1'

fixed the problem in no time.


@John VV: The software I'm using to copy mp3's on the player is automount and cp.