pen drive partition not detected

nem · 2009-12-16 00:12:37

good evening,

since i formatted my pen drive on windows with fat16/32 the sticks' partition doesn't show up anymore in /dev. there's just a new /dev/sdx and even cfdisk doesn't like the mbr anymore. so i formatted it on linux with mkfs.vfat to fat16/32 (wiped the mbr with dd first) and now windows doesn't like the stick anymore (says the drive isn't formatted) - fortunately might someone say but i'd like to use it on both os'.

this is the fat16 formatted mbr from linux:

00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
000001b0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01  |................|
000001c0  01 00 06 1f be b0 3e 00  00 00 82 db 14 00 00 00  |......>.........|
000001d0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
000001f0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 55 aa  |..............U.|
00000200

and this is the fat32 formatted mbr from w32:

00000000  eb 58 90 4d 53 44 4f 53  35 2e 30 00 08 04 20 00  |.X.MSDOS5.0... .|
00000010  02 00 00 00 00 f8 00 00  3f 00 ff 00 00 00 00 00  |........?.......|
00000020  00 b1 07 00 f6 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00  |................|
00000030  01 00 06 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000040  00 01 29 f2 8b 1a 98 4e  4f 20 4e 41 4d 45 20 20  |..)....NO NAME  |
00000050  20 20 46 41 54 33 32 20  20 20 33 c9 8e d1 bc f4  |  FAT32   3.....|
00000060  7b 8e c1 8e d9 bd 00 7c  88 4e 02 8a 56 40 b4 08  |{......|.N..V@..|
00000070  cd 13 73 05 b9 ff ff 8a  f1 66 0f b6 c6 40 66 0f  |..s......f...@f.|
00000080  b6 d1 80 e2 3f f7 e2 86  cd c0 ed 06 41 66 0f b7  |....?.......Af..|
00000090  c9 66 f7 e1 66 89 46 f8  83 7e 16 00 75 38 83 7e  |.f..f.F..~..u8.~|
000000a0  2a 00 77 32 66 8b 46 1c  66 83 c0 0c bb 00 80 b9  |*.w2f.F.f.......|
000000b0  01 00 e8 2b 00 e9 48 03  a0 fa 7d b4 7d 8b f0 ac  |...+..H...}.}...|
000000c0  84 c0 74 17 3c ff 74 09  b4 0e bb 07 00 cd 10 eb  |..t.<.t.........|
000000d0  ee a0 fb 7d eb e5 a0 f9  7d eb e0 98 cd 16 cd 19  |...}....}.......|
000000e0  66 60 66 3b 46 f8 0f 82  4a 00 66 6a 00 66 50 06  |f`f;F...J.fj.fP.|
000000f0  53 66 68 10 00 01 00 80  7e 02 00 0f 85 20 00 b4  |Sfh.....~.... ..|
00000100  41 bb aa 55 8a 56 40 cd  13 0f 82 1c 00 81 fb 55  |A..U.V@........U|
00000110  aa 0f 85 14 00 f6 c1 01  0f 84 0d 00 fe 46 02 b4  |.............F..|
00000120  42 8a 56 40 8b f4 cd 13  b0 f9 66 58 66 58 66 58  |B.V@......fXfXfX|
00000130  66 58 eb 2a 66 33 d2 66  0f b7 4e 18 66 f7 f1 fe  |fX.*f3.f..N.f...|
00000140  c2 8a ca 66 8b d0 66 c1  ea 10 f7 76 1a 86 d6 8a  |...f..f....v....|
00000150  56 40 8a e8 c0 e4 06 0a  cc b8 01 02 cd 13 66 61  |V@............fa|
00000160  0f 82 54 ff 81 c3 00 02  66 40 49 0f 85 71 ff c3  |..T.....f@I..q..|
00000170  4e 54 4c 44 52 20 20 20  20 20 20 00 00 00 00 00  |NTLDR      .....|
00000180  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
000001a0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 0d 0a 44 61  |..............Da|
000001b0  74 65 6e 74 72 84 67 65  72 20 65 6e 74 66 65 72  |tentr.ger entfer|
000001c0  6e 65 6e ff 0d 0a 4d 65  64 69 65 6e 66 65 68 6c  |nen...Medienfehl|
000001d0  65 72 ff 0d 0a 4e 65 75  73 74 61 72 74 3a 20 54  |er...Neustart: T|
000001e0  61 73 74 65 20 64 72 81  63 6b 65 6e 0d 0a 00 00  |aste dr.cken....|
000001f0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 ac c4 d3 00 00 55 aa  |..............U.|
00000200

so here are my questions:
why does windows give a fuck on standards? (not recognizing standard mbr and ignoring partitiontable offset at 0x1be - no wonder cfdisk goes crazy) and how the heck do i get the stick working again on both os'? any special trick with mkfs.vfat?

thanks in advance.

Last edited by nem (2009-12-16 00:16:44)

denisfalqueto · 2009-12-16 02:06:15

I always use mkdosfs -F 32 -I /dev/sd# (replace # by your real device letter, of course). It always works very well, even on windows.

You should not need to part the stick, unless you want more than one partition with different file systems.

nem · 2009-12-16 12:15:44

strangely enough formatting the device with -I doesn't make it work on both systems. however i created a partition and formatted /dev/sdxX without -I and it worked for both.
thanks for your help

R00KIE · 2009-12-16 15:36:50

You can format the drive without any partition and it will work on both systems but on linux it will take more time to detect.

This is because there is no partition and something needs to try and guess if there is actually some filesystem on the device and which filesystem.

The upside is that you can use all the space available, if you create a partition table and one partition inside some space will be left unused,

the_isz · 2009-12-16 16:04:11

Also, please note that window$ is only able to use the very first partition on
the stick, no more, no less. For further details, have a look at my blog.

nem · 2009-12-17 00:56:04

Thanks for your further replies!

So i tried to format the device with the -I switch and the stick didn't work.. no matter how long i wait, there's no partition initialized at any time. I also got a brandnew stick from a store today and it didn't work from scratch with the delivered mbr - weird..
And according to the 'windows only likes the first partition'-thingie.. ridiculous - i'm currently at a point where nothing surprises me anymore about windows and it's incredible capability of incompatibility.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-16 00:12:37

pen drive partition not detected

#2 2009-12-16 02:06:15

Re: pen drive partition not detected

#3 2009-12-16 12:15:44

Re: pen drive partition not detected

#4 2009-12-16 15:36:50

Re: pen drive partition not detected

#5 2009-12-16 16:04:11

Re: pen drive partition not detected

#6 2009-12-17 00:56:04

Re: pen drive partition not detected

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