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    #1

    unreadable usb wont format then install knoppix

    LOL kinda sounds stupid but it worked!

    I have a 64 gig Lexar that I used to install *nixs on to try them out and one day it just went south, I put it aside months ago but decided to resurrect it today.

    It would NOT partition, format, anything using Kpartition manager so I downloaded the latest Knoppix ( which is LXDE with KDE installed and it uses a LOT of animations! )

    but, tried several times using KwikDisk and Gparted and finally Gparted seemed to get formatting done but no.

    So, what the hey, I Installed Knoppix! but...alas and alack...even though it ACTED as if it installed it didn't but...then I tried Gparted again and got a very nice ext. 4 file system!

    HOWEVER Dolphin does not show it until you remove it and plug it back in. okaaayyy ...

    I mean...who woulda thought!

    If anyone actually tries this on a recalcitrant usb please post about it!

    woodsmoke
    Tags: usb wont format
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    #2
    woodsmoke, I've seen that action before. If I start the system with the data USB drive plugged in, it is not recognized by Dolphin unless I unplug/replug in the USB port. If I start the system first, then plug in a USB drive, Dolphin mounts it immediately. Not a serious problem but...

    When I format a USB drive as a bootable device with an OS install image and adjust the BIOS boot order to favor the USB ports, then I can boot an install disk, but that action is done by the BIOS itself, not by the Linux OS. Curiouser and curiouser...
    Kubuntu 24.11 64bit under Kernel 6.12.3, Hp Pavilion, 6MB ram. Stay away from all things Google...
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      #3
      Originally posted by TWPonKubuntu View Post
      woodsmoke, I've seen that action before. If I start the system with the data USB drive plugged in, it is not recognized by Dolphin unless I unplug/replug in the USB port. If I start the system first, then plug in a USB drive, Dolphin mounts it immediately. Not a serious problem but...

      When I format a USB drive as a bootable device with an OS install image and adjust the BIOS boot order to favor the USB ports, then I can boot an install disk, but that action is done by the BIOS itself, not by the Linux OS. Curiouser and curiouser...
      Actually, if you consider that it's the UDEV process detecting the plug-in action that alerts the system to the drive's presence, it makes sense. If you boot with the drive already inserted, there's no plug-in action occurring therefore no notification that the USB drive has arrived. It would still be detected (or should be) just no notification that's it's there. Seems likely Dolphin is dependent on the UDEV notification to "announce" the presence of a USB device. You could mount it manually, but it's actually easier to pull and re-insert it in most cases.

      Please Read Me
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        #4
        Hi
        thanks for the comments guys!

        if any others have comments I would like to read them!

        woodsmoke
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          #5
          oshunlvr (as per usual) is right on the money. UDEV exists to provide notifications about new hardware being inserted during a session, Dolphin doesn't do that and it shouldn't. When a USB drive exists during boot, and is mounted during boot, it should show up in Dolphin just like any other drive. If any drive gets mounted, it is supposed to show up in Dolphin. Devices that are not drives (i.e., printers) do not show up in Dolphin, nor would that be expected, but if it is a USB device it will show up in lsusb.

          When I plug in my Android it shows in "places" in Dolphin, and when I open a second tab and click on the Samsung places entry, then both the internal and external storage that are on the tablet show up in that second tab.

          If some device is not detected as drive-like by UDEV, then it will not show up anywhere. That sometimes happens with a crapped out thumb drive or one with a really unusual partitioning table. Some of those things may be corrected by loading a package, such as for recognizing exfat. And sometimes the thumb drive is just trash.

          I had a brand new thumb drive a while back that just refused to open, mount, or allow any usual actions to be taken with it, or even consistently show up in dmesg. I tried gparted, fdisk and the alphabet soup varieties of fdisk. Eventually, I was able to dd it into submission with enough /dev/zero over writes, that fdisk was finally able to write a partition table that would work and be formatted with fat32. I can't even think now of the exact steps - it was kinda like throwing jello at the wall and finally some of it stuck. That thumb drive continues to work to this day. and I've used it to have different distros, as well as data files written to it.
          The next brick house on the left
          Intel i7 11th Gen | 16GB | 1TB | KDE Plasma 5.27.11​| Kubuntu 24.04 | 6.8.0-31-generic
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            #6
            Recalcitrant thumb drives, or those that show strange things on them (artifacts, remnants) ... there's a sure-fire Rx: zero it out with dd, then format FAT32. If you are going to make a live USB out of it, then simply zero it out first--no need to format FAT32--then make a live USB using dd to write the iso file (the iso file also contains the boot stuff it needs, automatically). Questions?
            An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski
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              #7
              Hi guys
              thanks for the comments!
              woody
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                #8
                Case in point ...

                Just happened to me. I had a live GParted USB and wanted to use it for something else, opened GParted, tried to delete existing partition table and make a new one and format FAT32 etc -- no go! GParted threw back various messages and errors, and so on. (I think this happens because when making live USBs, various weird/odd partition setups are used to make it work, and I think all sorts of artifacts are left behind.) So I exited GParted and used dd to zero-out the thumb drive:

                sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=16M

                That took almost 18 minutes,
                8127512576 bytes (8.1 GB, 7.6 GiB) copied, 1070.66 s, 7.6 MB/s

                Then opened GParted again, made the partition table (ms-dos), one partition, formatted FAT32, done deal.
                An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski
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                  #9
                  thanks, ...18 MINUTES!!! WOAH!

                  I still have the usb I was going to use it to jam doors with Fafherd or the Grey Mouser!

                  So I'll try your suggestion!

                  woody
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                    #10
                    Shades of my youth: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser! Thanks woody!
                    Kubuntu 24.11 64bit under Kernel 6.12.3, Hp Pavilion, 6MB ram. Stay away from all things Google...
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                      #11
                      LOL
                      yep, one of my faves!

                      woody
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