#1 2016-09-15 13:46:42

righN

Member

Registered: 2016-06-08

Posts: 41

fdisk detects my usb flash drive but GParted, file manager doesn't

Hi, I wanted to check what I have on my USB Flash Drive because I just forgot . I inserted it but GParted, File Manager didin't detected it. So, I went to the terminal and used "fdisk -l" command to check all devices and Flash Drive was there but somehow it showed that there's is only 650M storage when it has to be 8G, and Type was Hidden HPFS/NTFS. Tried to use this command to format it "mkdosfs -F 32 -I /dev/sdb1" but it didin't work. Can you help me?

nobody

The Great

Registered: 2015-08-10

Posts: 3,655

Re: fdisk detects my usb flash drive but GParted, file manager doesn't

Plug the drive and show us:

lsblk

as well as the fdisk -l output you mentioned.

righN

Member

Registered: 2016-06-08

Posts: 41

Re: fdisk detects my usb flash drive but GParted, file manager doesn't

Plug the drive and show us:

lsblk

as well as the fdisk -l output you mentioned.

lsblk

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 149.1G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0  62.5G  0 part /
└─sda3   8:3    0  86.6G  0 part 
sdb      8:16   1   7.5G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   1   659M  0 part 
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 149.1 GiB, 160041885696 bytes, 312581808 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
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x44794478

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *         2048 131074047 131072000 62.5G 83 Linux
/dev/sda3       131074048 312578047 181504000 86.6G 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 7.5 GiB, 8006926336 bytes, 15638528 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
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x4848255d

Device     Boot Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *       64 1349631 1349568  659M 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS

ohnonot

...again

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 5,592

Re: fdisk detects my usb flash drive but GParted, file manager doesn't

in case like this i recommend "nuking" the stick, like this:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M count=1

(blocksize and count are pretty random, it just have to be enough to destroy the MBR)
the sdX would be 'sdb' in your case (NOT sdb1), but please make double-sure!
dd = disk destroyer!

edit:
additionally a reboot might be necessary after that.

Last edited by ohnonot (2016-09-15 16:35:25)

nobody

The Great

Registered: 2015-08-10

Posts: 3,655

Re: fdisk detects my usb flash drive but GParted, file manager doesn't

There's one partition of 659M on the USB drive, so let's create one single 7.5G-sized one.

Make sure you got the block device of the stick (like: /dev/sdb). Then you do:

fdisk /dev/sdb
# Enter the following commands
o # create a new DOS partition table
n # add a new partition
p # primary partition
1 # partition no 1
<enter> # accept default start sector
<enter> # accept default end sector - will create partition of maximum size
w # write to disk and exit

Remove your USB device and plug it in again. You now have a partition of size 7.5G; when you create a FAT file system on it next time, it should use the maximum of available space.