Higuys!

I have following problem, I cant solve with my knowledge:

I put an OS on an 8 GB USB Flashdrive (dont know the manufacture) by burning the ISO-File on it. Worked perfectly well.
Now I wanted to use it "normal" again. So I put an new partition table with an new FAT partition on it. I thought that it should act now like normal USB-drive.
But it doesnt! When I plug it in, dolphin shows two devices to mount.

1. UDF Volume
this is the corret one containing the new partition (8gb space, so the whole stick should be this partition). when i take a look into mtab it correctly says /dev/sdb1. I can use the partition without problems.

2. USB Disk 2.0
if i open this one, I get a part of the directory structure from the ISO-file. The disk is mounted read only. Total size is 3,5 GB so its the size of the ISO. /etc/mtab says that /dev/sdb (with no number) is mounted!!

My Interpretation
In the partition table there is only partition 1. Somewhere must be the original ISO-fs, so linux still recognizes it, but also sees the partition table. (I cant mount both partitions the same time.) I havent known that this is even possible.

So is it a good idea to just overwrite /dev/sdb with 0 with the command dd?
Thanks in advance

Leonhard



Additional Info:
fdisk (as well as gparted) see only the first partition
in /dev there is also only /dev/sdb and /dev/sdb1
when I unmount I have to re-plug-in being able to mount again
If I rename the stick, its "UDV Volume" which changes its name

http://newcome.wordpress.com/2010/01...disk-using-dd/

do that and it should clean the disk. then you can fdisk, format as you desire.

Thank you, worked perfectly well.

I have done:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M count=50
# so I have deleted the first 50 MiB

fdisk /dev/sdb
o # new DOS-Partitioning-Table
n # new Partition
p # primary partiton
1 # number 1
default for sectors
w # write changes

mkudffs --media-type=hd --blocksize=512 /dev/sdb1 # UDF can be read/written by Linux and Windows

Though I still dont understand, how that could be

glad that worked. please mark the thread solved.

from what ive experienced there is something about creating a LiveUSB device that leaves residual areas on the drive that only a zero write seems to clear. sorry cant say why, just that it works.