USB Drive Unable to Erase

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1

Hello, I have an issue that I’ve not come across before and hope someone might have some sage words to assist.
I used the following command to place the manjaro mate iso onto a usb stick to use as a install medium:
sudo dd bs=4M if=manjaro-mate-20.2-201212-linux59.iso of=/dev/sdb status=progress oflag=sync

And that works wonderfully to install manjaro mate. The issue is that now I can not format the drive at all.

I have a feeling that the geometry of the device is not being correctly reported to the kernel. sfdisk doesn’t support cylinder / head/ sector options since 2.26.

  # lsblk
    sdb                                             8:16   1 225.3G  0 disk  
├─sdb1                                          8:17   1   2.2G  0 part  
└─sdb2                                          8:18   1     4M  0 part

❯ sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.36.2).

Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sdb: 7.65 GiB, 8213966848 bytes, 16042904 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: 0x50452f44

❯ ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/usb*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Apr 5 11:09 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-JetFlash_Transcend_256GB_03X87O8S9PCAOPL9-0:0 → …/…/sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 5 11:09 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-JetFlash_Transcend_256GB_03X87O8S9PCAOPL9-0:0-part1 → …/…/sdb1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Apr 5 11:09 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-JetFlash_Transcend_256GB_03X87O8S9PCAOPL9-0:0-part2 → …/…/sdb2

❯ sudo gdisk -l /dev/sdb
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.7

Partition table scan:
MBR: MBR only
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: not present

Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format
in memory.

Disk /dev/sdb: 16042904 sectors, 7.6 GiB
Model: Transcend 256GB
Sector size (logical): 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): F1C8556C-1791-4DB4-B500-29CF59AB1DAE
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 16042870
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 16042837 sectors (7.6 GiB)

2

Hello @Aeolus :wink:

Just run:

sudo wipefs -a -f /dev/sdb

and it should be done. But it just deletes only all signatures.

3

Hey megavolt, after running wipefs the drive still only shows 7.65 GiB.

4

Then just create new partition table on it with gparted or similar :wink:

5

I’m sorry I should have posted the output, it’s still showing the total size of the disk as 7.65GB vice 256GB:

❯ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb
[sudo] password for wildman:
Disk /dev/sdb: 7.65 GiB, 8213966848 bytes, 16042904 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

I can create a partition but it will carve it out of the total size being reported to the kernel, which in this case is wrong.

6

ok… let me think:

  1. fdisk and gdisk reports this:

gdisk reports also this model:

You just dd and image to it:

and lsblk reports this after:

I guess at this point you have never formatted the drive, right? So it was pre-formated?

From this data, I would assume that this flash drive is a fake one and reported first the wrong size, but linux has detect the correct size after reformatting.

Here is a tutorial how to check if it is a fake usb: How to Check Real USB Capacity in Linux Terminal - LinuxBabe

7

I ran F3:

❯ sudo f3probe /dev/sdb
F3 probe 8.0
Copyright © 2010 Digirati Internet LTDA.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.

WARNING: Probing normally takes from a few seconds to 15 minutes, but
it can take longer. Please be patient.

Probe finished, recovering blocks… Done

Good news: The device `/dev/sdb’ is the real thing

Device geometry:
Usable size: 225.28 GB (472444928 blocks)
Announced size: 225.28 GB (472444928 blocks)
Module: 256.00 GB (2^38 Bytes)
Approximate cache size: 0.00 Byte (0 blocks), need-reset=no
Physical block size: 512.00 Byte (2^9 Bytes)

So now I’m running: sudo dd of=/dev/sdb if=/dev/zero
To see if I can actually write something to it.
Here’s the output of lsblk now:

❯ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 238.5G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 0 238.5G 0 part
└─luks-3f8f3cbb-5736-47a8-afb8-2ee4676b2350
254:0 0 238.5G 0 crypt /
sdb 8:16 1 225.3G 0 disk

Edit: We were thinking the same thing about the fake drive…lol

8

That is really strange. Maybe there is problem with flash drive, maybe it is the kernel driver. idk. To check this i would recommend to replace the flash drive with the same model and try again. If it is still the same, then there must be something wrong with driver.

9

To follow-up:

❯ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 238.5G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 0 238.5G 0 part
└─luks-3f8f3cbb-5736-47a8-afb8-2ee4676b2350
254:0 0 238.5G 0 crypt /
sdb 8:16 1 225.3G 0 disk
└─sdb1 8:17 1 225.3G 0 part
❯ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1
mke2fs 1.46.2 (28-Feb-2021)
Creating filesystem with 59055360 4k blocks and 14770176 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 4e75e922-ae88-4c33-99d7-23381e9ee5e1
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (262144 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

10

Hello,

the same Yesterday here.
Back from Kernel 5.11.6-1 to LTS 5.4.101-1 and allready is fine.

11

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