Bug#511679: installation-guide-i386: Provide information on how to restore USB stick to its previous state

[M.-A. DARCHE-2]

Package: installation-guide-i386
Version: Current version http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/ch04s03.html
Severity: wishlist


Hello

I have installed Lenny Testing through a USB stick as described in
http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/ch04s03.html

It boots OK as it should etc.

The problem now is that I cannot recover/restore my USB stick to its previous
state. Before me installing the Debian installer on it, the USB capacity (size)
was 2Gb and now when I open the USB device with either fdisk or cfdisk it only
shows a 1Gb capacity.

That's why I think that the Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide should feature
a small section on "Howto restore the USB stick to its previous state".
So that people like me are not left with a crippled USB mass storage afterward.

Best and warm regards



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[Frans Pop-3]

First of all, sorry for the late reply.

On Tuesday 13 January 2009, M.-A. DARCHE wrote:
> The problem now is that I cannot recover/restore my USB stick to its
> previous state. Before me installing the Debian installer on it, the USB
> capacity (size) was 2Gb and now when I open the USB device with either
> fdisk or cfdisk it only shows a 1Gb capacity.
>
> That's why I think that the Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide should
> feature a small section on "Howto restore the USB stick to its previous
> state". So that people like me are not left with a crippled USB mass
> storage afterward.

I would be happy to add something, but I really have no idea what.

Did you ever find a procedure that restored the stick to its full capacity?

Cheers,
FJP



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[Otavio Salvador-2]

Hello,

On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 4:13 AM, Frans Pop <elendil@...> wrote:
> Did you ever find a procedure that restored the stick to its full capacity?

"parted mklabel  msdos" ought to clear it up (and you'll lose your
data) but after creating new partition it ought to continue to work.

Does it work for you?

--
Otavio Salvador                  O.S. Systems
E-mail: otavio@...  http://www.ossystems.com.br
Mobile: [phone]         http://projetos.ossystems.com.br



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[M.-A. DARCHE-2]

Otavio Salvador a écrit :
> Hello,
>

Hello Debian :-)

It took me some time to answer because I wanted to do some more tests
prior to answering.


> On Fri, Nov 6, 2009 at 4:13 AM, Frans Pop <elendil@...> wrote:
>> Did you ever find a procedure that restored the stick to its full capacity?
>

No I did not find any procedure that could restore the stick to its
full original capacity.

I did some more research and tests (see below) with no success
and I lost hope, sticking with my now 1Gb USB stick.

So I think the installation guide should at least state:

- there are some risks to lose original capacity
- do a full image backup to restore the USB-stick afterward

... and that could make this ticket closed since we haven't
anything better to propose so far. Of course I'm still interested
to read there if someone can provide a solution.


Tests done
==========

1. dd
-----

I have used dd again => still 1.0Gb capacity :-(

$ sudo LC_ALL=C dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb
dd: writing to `/dev/sdb': No space left on device
2031617+0 records in
2031616+0 records out
1040187392 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 326.42 s, 3.2 MB/s

SDFormatter
-----------

The "SD Association" was mentionned many times on help forums, etc.
along with their http://www.sdcard.org/consumers/formatter/
It could only run on Windows systems. So I had to get a VM with
Windows on it to be able to test it.

I did all the possible format operations (quick, full, erase on | off,
format size adjustment on | off) with no success.


I suspect the solution to be in the MBR somehow ... and I don't know
what to modify *inside* the MBR.


> "parted mklabel  msdos" ought to clear it up (and you'll lose your
> data) but after creating new partition it ought to continue to work.
>
> Does it work for you?
>

parted behaves very strangely on my Debian "Lenny" stable. It accepts
only to work on mounted partitions. Is that how it should be?


Cheers,

--
Marc-Aurèle DARCHE
AFUL http://www.aful.org/
Association Francophone des Utilisateurs de Logiciels Libres
French speaking Libre Software Users' Association




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[Otavio Salvador-2]

Hello,

On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 3:29 PM, M.-A. DARCHE <ma.darche@...> wrote:
> parted behaves very strangely on my Debian "Lenny" stable. It accepts
> only to work on mounted partitions. Is that how it should be?

No, it should work on devices as well.

What worries me is that you had pasted dd erasing whole device and
this would destroy the MBR as well and then it might not be a MBR
issue. If you:

dd if=/dev/zero of=<your usbstick>
partprobe
parted mklabel <your usbstick> msdos

It still fails? If yes, please paste the output.

--
Otavio Salvador                  O.S. Systems
E-mail: otavio@...  http://www.ossystems.com.br
Mobile: [phone]         http://projetos.ossystems.com.br



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[M.-A. DARCHE-2]

Otavio Salvador a écrit :
>
> On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 3:29 PM, M.-A. DARCHE <ma.darche@...> wrote:
>> parted behaves very strangely on my Debian "Lenny" stable. It accepts
>> only to work on mounted partitions. Is that how it should be?
>
> No, it should work on devices as well.
>

That seems logical to me that it should behave that way,
but it doesn't seem to do so, at least with the stable version
(parted 1.8.8.git.2008.03.2) and on my setup :'(


> What worries me is that you had pasted dd erasing whole device and
> this would destroy the MBR as well and then it might not be a MBR
> issue.
>

OK, I thought that somehow the MBR would not be affected
by dd operations.


> If you:
>
> dd if=/dev/zero of=<your usbstick>

OK done


> partprobe

$ sudo partprobe
$ echo $?
0

> parted mklabel <your usbstick> msdos
>

$ LC_ALL=C sudo parted mklabel /dev/sdb msdos
Error: Could not stat device mklabel - No such file or directory.
Retry/Cancel?


Thanks for your help and time on this

--
Marc-Aurèle DARCHE
AFUL http://www.aful.org/
Association Francophone des Utilisateurs de Logiciels Libres
French speaking Libre Software Users' Association



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[Otavio Salvador-2]

Hello,

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 7:01 AM, M.-A. DARCHE <ma.darche@...> wrote:
>> parted mklabel <your usbstick> msdos
>>
>
> $ LC_ALL=C sudo parted mklabel /dev/sdb msdos
> Error: Could not stat device mklabel - No such file or directory.
> Retry/Cancel?

Sorry, my fault.

parted /dev/sdb mklabel msdos

You can use:

parted /dev/sdb mkpart

To create a partition on it. After that you'll need to format it later.

--
Otavio Salvador                  O.S. Systems
E-mail: otavio@...  http://www.ossystems.com.br
Mobile: [phone]         http://projetos.ossystems.com.br



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[M.-A. DARCHE-2]

Otavio Salvador a écrit :

> Hello,
>
> On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 7:01 AM, M.-A. DARCHE <ma.darche@...> wrote:
>>> parted mklabel <your usbstick> msdos
>>>
>> $ LC_ALL=C sudo parted mklabel /dev/sdb msdos
>> Error: Could not stat device mklabel - No such file or directory.
>> Retry/Cancel?
>
> Sorry, my fault.
>
> parted /dev/sdb mklabel msdos
>
> You can use:
>
> parted /dev/sdb mkpart
>
> To create a partition on it. After that you'll need to format it later.
>

Here are the operations below:

$ sudo parted /dev/sdb mklabel msdos
Warning: The existing disk label on /dev/sdb will be destroyed and all
data on this disk will be
lost. Do you want to continue?
parted: invalid token: msdos
Yes/No? yes
New disk label type?  [msdos]?
Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.


$ sudo parted /dev/sdb mkpart primary fat32 0 1041
Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.

[I have tried different values for end, and 1041 is the highest
 that is accepted. Otherwise I get error message such as:
 Error: The location 1042 is outside of the device /dev/sdb.]


$ /sbin/fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 1040 MB, 1040187392 bytes
118 heads, 55 sectors/track, 313 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 6490 * 512 = 3322880 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000810f9

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1         314     1015807+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(126, 117, 55) logical=(313, 4, 26)



$ mount /media/usb
$ df
/dev/sdb1             991M  4,0K  991M   1% /media/usb


The capacity is still < of the original 2Gb   :-(


Thanks again for your help and giving me this hint on parted.

Cheers,

--
Marc-Aurèle DARCHE
AFUL http://www.aful.org/
Association Francophone des Utilisateurs de Logiciels Libres
French speaking Libre Software Users' Association



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