[SWLUG] removing CDFS on USB memory

[Mark Summerfield]

> What happens if you mkdosfs  on the device, rather than either of the
> partitions?
> Seeming as you dont want multiple partitions, maybe you can go without a
> partition table?
> 
> Hugh

> Steve Hill wrote:
> > Are you sure that's the right device name?  /dev/md* are software RAID
> > devices.  USB mass storage devices usually appear as /dev/sd*
>
> Also - what about dd'ing the whole drive (first backing it up), and then
> wiping all the data before recreating the partitions...

> Are you sure that's the right device name?  /dev/md* are software RAID 
> devices.  USB mass storage devices usually appear as /dev/sd*

Hi,

Replies to several.

I don't know what the device name _really_ is. After inserting the USB
on Fedora I get /dev/sdf1 appearing in my df but this does _not_ include
the CDFS partition which doesn't show up at all.

On Kubuntu I get two devices, /dev/scd0 a read-only CD and /dev/sdb1 the
normal FAT partition.

I can't wipe out the data on the /dev/scd0 because Linux really thinks
it can't write to it.

If /dev/scd0 is mounted, mkdosfs won't touch it "contains a mounted file
system"; but if it is unmounted mkdosfs says "unable to open dev/scd0".

I didn't try dd because I don't know how to use it and the man page
isn't very clear.

I don't mind deleting everything on the thing, I can always copy back
from elsewhere.

I tried cfdisk on /dev/scd0 (as root) and it said I don't have write
permission (and in any case seems to show the wrong size). Both parted
and fdisk say the sector size is 2048 (instead of the expected 512) and
therefore say they can't write to it.

Thanks!

-- 
Mark Summerfield, Qtrac Ltd., www.qtrac.eu