[SOLVED] USB Stick fails

[Atip]

This is not a Salix problem, however, I can't find a topic where to put it.

Anyhow, I have a USB stick which is not recognized any longer on booting.
I have deleted all the files, formated it again installed this time Slackel-Live Fluxbox.
It just will not be read.

BIOS is set correctly with first boot USB stick. It is not seen. F11 to give boot
devices does not show this particular USB stick.

When I compare fdisk with one stick which is recognized it looks all the same to me.

Output with fdisk of "dead" stick

Code: Select all

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdc: 4083 MB, 4083351552 bytes
126 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1020 cylinders, total 7975296 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: 0x20ac7dda

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   ?  3224498923  3657370039   216435558+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdc2   ?  3272020941   930513678   976730017   16  Hidden FAT16
/dev/sdc3   ?           0           0           0   6f  Unknown
/dev/sdc4        50200576   974536369   462167897    0  Empty

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Output of working stick:

Code: Select all

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdc: 4026 MB, 4026531840 bytes
124 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1022 cylinders, total 7864320 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: 0x20ac7dda

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   ?  3224498923  3657370039   216435558+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdc2   ?  3272020941   930513678   976730017   16  Hidden FAT16
/dev/sdc3   ?           0           0           0   6f  Unknown
/dev/sdc4        50200576   974536369   462167897    0  Empty

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Is it possible to revive such a stick or better toss it into the trash can?

[jcoleman]

don't give up on the stick yet. Seems I have one that gave me fits for a bit after using it extensively for testing new distros. Can't remember which distro but the stick wouldn't re-format using gparted or the CLI. The puter could see it but I couldn't do anything with it. I almost always use dd to write the iso to it. Then by chance I stuck it in another computer and I was able to re-format and use again. Don't hold me to it, but it may have been opensuse or (fedora??) that had been on it and I probably had Salix on the machine to try and re-format it. I was doing a bunch of distro hopping on a spare machine(s) trying out some and had 3 machines I was playing with so things are a little more foggy than usual. Long story short - try it in another computer if you can. SalixOS ended up on all the daily used machines, again.

[elcore]

I've seen that after i used dd to burn some other distro livecd iso.
Some of the images do not contain valid partition table, but some sort of hybrid partitions.
Nothing serious, you should be able to fix by rebuilding the partition table (type:MSDOS)
Anyway, I've found syslinux on fat32 stick works perfectly for slackware based installers.

[Atip]

Thanks jcoleman!

You gave me an idea. Since I have no other computer around I booted Knoppix 7.4
from USB stick. Run gparted, deleting the bad stick then creating a new partition
table and the stick is now useable again.

Now I have done this at least 3 times in Salix with this stick and it would not work.
Was it then after all a Salix problem?

[mimosa]

Could be different versions of gparted or its dependencies. I can remember having similar troubles. I can't really remember but I think I might have wiped the stick with dd then created a new msdos partition table in gparted. That would probably be worth a try for anyone experiencing similar difficulties.

On the other hand, memory sticks do wear out, and all bets are then off - you may still get it to work one way or another, but not reliably or reproducibly. This is a matter of degree, and within the partitions, is managed by whichever filesystem is present.