I think shrunk my USB drive by about 1.7 GB?

generic_ · 2009-06-15 04:06:04

Well I have a 2 GB USB drive. I tried running this command when creating a an archlinux liveusb

dd bs=8M if=image.img of=/dev/sdb1

and now after reformatting, in windows and linux with fdisk, in multiple fisk systems. It continuously says there is only 170 MB of space in the drive. Can someone help me dd this thing back to normal?After trying to use the same method that was used to shink it I tried the same command with a 500MB .mkv file and it said No space left on device (170MB)

Last edited by generic_ (2009-06-15 04:10:37)

SyXbiT · 2009-06-15 04:09:30

just fully wipe it again with dd (but wipe sdb, not sdb1)
try
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb
and then format it with gparted

Last edited by SyXbiT (2009-06-15 04:10:19)

generic_ · 2009-06-15 04:18:46

i followed your suggestion and its been "dding" for abput 7 minutes now will it ever stop?

generic_ · 2009-06-15 04:26:57

it took awhile but it worked thanks!

generic_ · 2009-06-15 04:39:54

it didnt work! It even said wrote 2GB but when i formatted it it went back to 170MB!

r00t_ninja · 2009-06-15 09:24:33

try using gparted to delete all partions and then make a new partition using all the free space.

R00KIE · 2009-06-15 09:40:46

What is the output of

cfdisk -Ps /dev/sdb

perbh · 2009-06-15 12:23:26

Before we all go off half-cocked - let us examine what you actually _did_:

dd bs=8M if=image.img of=/dev/sdb1

You dd'd a file to a device - in this case /dev/sdb1.
This device will contain - amongst other things - filesystem information - which means that you happily overwrote whatever was there from before. 'dd' can be a dangerous command if you don't know what you are doing. I presume that what you tried to do was to copy a file onto the filesystem residing on sdb1, in which case you have to make sure that /dev/sdb1 is _mounted_ (mountpoint probably being /media/usb - or if done manually, whatever mountpoint of your choosing). First then would it have been safe to copy, and in your case it should have been:

dd bs=8M if=image.img of=/media/usb/image.img

Note that if this was your intention, you _have_ to actually _name_ the output file and not the directory. If you had used the 'cp' command, then the following would have been acceptable:

cp image.img /media/usb

and the result would have been a file on /media/usb with the same name as the source file.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-15 04:06:04

I think shrunk my USB drive by about 1.7 GB?

#2 2009-06-15 04:09:30

Re: I think shrunk my USB drive by about 1.7 GB?

#3 2009-06-15 04:18:46

Re: I think shrunk my USB drive by about 1.7 GB?

#4 2009-06-15 04:26:57

Re: I think shrunk my USB drive by about 1.7 GB?

#5 2009-06-15 04:39:54

Re: I think shrunk my USB drive by about 1.7 GB?

#6 2009-06-15 09:24:33

Re: I think shrunk my USB drive by about 1.7 GB?

#7 2009-06-15 09:40:46

Re: I think shrunk my USB drive by about 1.7 GB?

#8 2009-06-15 12:23:26

Re: I think shrunk my USB drive by about 1.7 GB?

Board footer