Hi RaviTezu,

Please find below the outputs as requested:

###### first after typing df -h this is what came back up;

df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 109G 7.0G 97G 7% /
udev 233M 4.0K 233M 1% /dev
tmpfs 98M 800K 97M 1% /run
none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
none 243M 720K 242M 1% /run/shm


######### second, after typing sudo fdisk;

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders, total 234441648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0fb9a5a8

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 231512714 115756326 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 231512715 234436544 1461915 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 231512778 234436544 1461883+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Note: sector size is 1024 (not 512)

Disk /dev/sdc: 4233 MB, 4233101312 bytes
131 heads, 62 sectors/track, 508 cylinders, total 4133888 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 1024 = 1024 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 1024 bytes / 1024 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 1024 bytes / 1024 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdc doesn't contain a valid partition table

As we can see from that output, your device is recognized as sdc, so the command I gave you with sdc instead of sdb might do the job.

Yes, Your mp3 Player is recognized as "/dev/sdc" by your kernel.

You can follow TobiSGD advice.

Ping us here, if you need any further help.

Good luck.

I want to thank you all, and a special empahsis on TobiSGD and RaviTezu.

I will follow the former's advice, though it really takes long (how long do one think it usually lasts? I left mine for an hour and it was still ''processing'', I saw no details on terminal window only the cursor which will blink now and again, or freeze in reciprocity to the laptop ''activity light'').

Anyway, Thank You All.

You have been Great, please close this post as [SOLVED] or something.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

How long the overwriting takes depends on the speed of the USB device. For example, it is 4233MB large and the maximum speed of USB 2.0 lieas around 30MB/s it wuld take about 2 1/2 minutes, but usually MP3 players, especially older or cheap devices, are much slower, so when it speeds up to 5MB/s it would take about 14 minutes.

If you think that your issue is solved you have to mark the thread as solved yourself, using the thread tools right above the first post.

Hi TobiSGD,

I guess..after zeroing the device, we need to format it with some file system..right?

At first a new partition table and partition have to be created, afterwards it needs to be formatted.

Partitioning the mp3 player?

I guess.. saulsadd can go ahead & run fdisk to format it.

What you say?

fdisk is not able to format anything. You can use it to create a partition table and partition on it, but you use use mkfs to format it. You can alternatively use cfdisk (it will create the partition table automatically, but formatting would still be manually) or GParted (will do all three actions).
I personally prefer the cfdisk/mkfs combination for tasks like that.

ouch was confused!!!

saulsadd can run mkfs.vfat /dev/sdc after zeroing it? As it will be recognized by windows & linux.

HI ALL,

I got back my little mp3 player. I can see it, mount it, add or remove it, and thanks to this site here for all future victims

http://sathyasays.com/2007/06/13/for...sing-terminal/

Thanks to Mr. Sathya, and everyone else here, in particular, to repeat the gratitude to RaviTezu and TobiSGD- Thank You.

It seems all I needed to do was format it by following Mr. Sathya simple procedures.

Thank You All.

In case of devices like MP3 players it is more relevant that the player itself can read the filesystem. These devices (at least the "normal" ones, never had an iPod or something like that) usually use FAT32 as filesystem. I would use this command to format it: