Arch Linux

swordofpain

Member

Registered: 2010-12-04

Posts: 3

Website

FAT32: Unable to use whole disk space

Hello everybody

I recently bought a 8GB USB flash disk. I created a fat32 filesystem (using mkfs.vfat) on the whole drive (/dev/sdb1).

# mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n katana /dev/sdc1

df -h shows approximately 8GB available, but when I try to extract an archive on the disk, the kernel raises No space left on device exceptions at about 812MB of occupation, and df stills show plenty of space available.

I tried with an other (brand new) usb drive (not the same model), and I got exactly the same error, st 812MB.

I tried to reformat using different softwares, I even tried with windows (through a vm). I just don't know what to do...

Thanks by advance

Last edited by swordofpain (2010-12-04 23:41:15)

R00KIE

Forum Fellow

From: Between a computer and a chair

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 4,734

Re: FAT32: Unable to use whole disk space

Check this thread [1], maybe your problem is the same.

[1] http://help.lockergnome.com/windows2/fi … 50749.html

---

R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K

Knute

Member

From: Minot, ND

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 604

Re: FAT32: Unable to use whole disk space

Alot of times the flash drive is partitioned wierdly and one part is set to resemble a cd drive.   It's been quite a while since I had to fight with that, but once you get rid of the cd emulation software, it works like a charm.

It's set to emulate a cd so that windows autoplay for cds/dvds can be used.

---

Knute

swordofpain

Member

Registered: 2010-12-04

Posts: 3

Website

Re: FAT32: Unable to use whole disk space

Alot of times the flash drive is partitioned wierdly and one part is set to resemble a cd drive.   It's been quite a while since I had to fight with that, but once you get rid of the cd emulation software, it works like a charm.

It's set to emulate a cd so that windows autoplay for cds/dvds can be used.

And how do I do that? using dd and /dev/zero on the main device file (/dev/sdc, according to my first post)?

kfgz

Member

From: Supraśl, Poland

Registered: 2009-03-02

Posts: 114

Re: FAT32: Unable to use whole disk space

FAT32 has limit of 4GB per file. You can format usbstick to NTFS.

swordofpain

Member

Registered: 2010-12-04

Posts: 3

Website

Re: FAT32: Unable to use whole disk space

Filesizes are under 4GB. And I need the usb drive to be formatted in FAT32 in order to be bootable. (I'm trying to install the katana toolkit)