LinuxQuestions.org - Read-only pendrive sectors

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Read-only pendrive sectors

hello ;)
I would like to expose a question about a pendrive I have. this is somekind of strange I belive ... lol

well, deep inside the memory there is some cylinders where is allocated some files that control the pen in windows... what this bring is so easy, not only slow very down he opening in windows as gets me some memory to. well, this sectors are read-only formated.
What I would like to ask you, is if there is any way to make it writable and so configure it nicely with fdisk?

This is a 1Gb pen drive, do you belive that could be possible install linux kernel in there? how many space could this call for? I belive this could be very intresting for recovering systems... what is your opinion?

thanks

Guilherme

Are you referring to the small read-only partition thatsdetected in Windows as "U3 System"? If so I believe it's safe to remove it or format it.

yes is exacly this.... ;)

but how can i do this if it is read-only??

thanks

A little Google searching leads me to this from the macosx forums, but the information should be pretty much the same:

Quote:

The Sandisk Cruzer is not formatted as a standard USB memory stick. It contains a separate "protected area" (not partition) that shows up as a completely separate device (not under the Cruzer device) and which contains a read-only CD-ROM file system. This "thing" is called U3 and it contains some kind of Windows program. It cannot be removed or reformatted using Disk Utility.

The only way to remove the U3 area and use the full capacity of the device is to use the Windows-only software at http://www.u3.com/uninstall/default.aspx. I believe it re-writes the firmware of the Cruzer device; merely fiddling with partitions won't work.

Also, the U3 Wiki has information about the uninstall utility. I'm tempted to try it on my own. Backup any important files first!

Thanks a lot ... indeed :D