[Solved] USB Sticks broken/locked after liveCD installed?

688a · 10-04-2012, 04:27 AM

Hi there,

Today, I installed the liveCD in my USB stick. It went OK and live Fedora system was up with the liveCD.

Then when I wanted to use the USB again, the memory size became 5MB and it was 2GB before. SO, I tried to format the stick in Windows, but it didn't work.

At the beginning, I thought it was because of my USB stick. Then, I used the second one and installed the Fedora 18 alpha version. After that, the same thing happened to the second stick. Now, the label of the 2nd stick is EFI and I could see some system files inside. Tried to delete the files in my Linux machine, but I don't have permission to do so.

So, how can I fix my USB sticks?

Thanks.

GlennsPref · 10-04-2012, 04:57 AM

Hi, some of those files are there for the FS (file system).

don't format it!

The flash file system changes depending on it being a "slave drive" (/mnt/...) or / (not /root).IMHO

An unusual bug I have come across, with flash to HDD installs, is you need to keep a working copy of the /boot/grub dir someplace safe from (install)system-formats. ie, a different partition.

Because what occurs is that the boot loader (or Grub-install) does not get written to /boot.

So you may need to do that with an app, like with... Grub Legacy boot loader, Grub4Dos...

or edit the file yourself

vi /boot/grub/menu.lst

Code:

sh-4.1# cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'.  Mon Oct  1 18:15:13 2012
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/sda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.sda.14773'.  You can restore it like this.
# dd if=/boot/grub/mbr.sda.14773 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
timeout 30
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Other bootable partition config begins
  title Windows (on /dev/sda1)
  rootnoverify (hd0,0)
  makeactive
  chainloader +1
# Other bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
  title Studio-1337 Linux
  root (hd0,2)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda3 pmedia=atahd vga=785
# Linux bootable partition config ends
sh-4.1#

After quite a few tests, I do this now

soon I'll have a script to set my settings after a clean install.

Hope this helps, Glenn (Late one afternoon)

688a · 10-04-2012, 06:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlennsPref

Hi, some of those files are there for the FS (file system).

don't format it!

The flash file system changes depending on it being a "slave drive" (/mnt/...) or / (not /root).IMHO

An unusual bug I have come across, with flash to HDD installs, is you need to keep a working copy of the /boot/grub dir someplace safe from (install)system-formats. ie, a different partition.

Because what occurs is that the boot loader (or Grub-install) does not get written to /boot.

So you may need to do that with an app, like with... Grub Legacy boot loader, Grub4Dos...

or edit the file yourself

vi /boot/grub/menu.lst

Code:

sh-4.1# cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'.  Mon Oct  1 18:15:13 2012
#
# The backup copy of the MBR for drive '/dev/sda' is
# here '/boot/grub/mbr.sda.14773'.  You can restore it like this.
# dd if=/boot/grub/mbr.sda.14773 of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
#
# Start GRUB global section
timeout 30
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Other bootable partition config begins
  title Windows (on /dev/sda1)
  rootnoverify (hd0,0)
  makeactive
  chainloader +1
# Other bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
  title Studio-1337 Linux
  root (hd0,2)
  kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda3 pmedia=atahd vga=785
# Linux bootable partition config ends
sh-4.1#

After quite a few tests, I do this now

soon I'll have a script to set my settings after a clean install.

Hope this helps, Glenn (Late one afternoon)

Thanks. Your reply is very educative to those idiots like me! I did format it. Someone from Fedora forum told me to gparted it, and it seems like working so far. Not yet use the sticks..

I've still got lots of things to learn from you guys.

Thanks again.