USB stick is not usable after burning iso opensuse 12.3 into it

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi everybody

I decided to install opensuse 12.4 by burning the DVD image to a USB stick using Imagewriter. It burned successfully and I could manage to boot opensuse from my USB. After the installation, I wanted to use the USB for other purposes, so I decided to format it in windows (NTFS). Now I am really shocked to see that only 4 megabytes of the 8 gigabyte USB is recognizable in windows. How can save my USB? I want to change its partition format to NTFS. By the way, Imagewriter.exe still sees the usb stick as an 8 gigabyte one.

Thank you all.

2

Hi
you probably did not delete the installation partition

type fdisk -l /dev/sdx where x is your device nr for the usb stick

if you see your opensuse partition is still there
type fdisk /dev/sdx
sdx should be unmouted
n fdisk type ? to get help

to apply changes in fdisk you type w for write and exit

3

I am in Linux right now.

I use the program LLFTOOL.EXE in Windows which stands for Low Level Format and is the actual name of the executable.

It is a freeware version and it should fix your problems.

I used it when a pendrive disk write was interrupted.

After you use it, you will have to partition it again.

It has also helped when some distros of Linux would not install the first time on a pendrive.

Good luck,
Andy

4

On 2013-09-19 19:26, Stranzoo wrote:
>
> Hi everybody
>
> I decided to install opensuse 12.4 by burning the DVD image to a USB
> stick using Imagewriter. It burned successfully and I could manage to
> boot opensuse from my USB. After the installation, I wanted to use the
> USB for other purposes, so I decided to format it in windows (NTFS). Now
> I am really shocked to see that only 4 megabytes of the 8 gigabyte USB
> is recognizable in windows. How can save my USB? I want to change its
> partition format to NTFS. By the way, Imagewriter.exe still sees the usb
> stick as an 8 gigabyte one.

The windows format program is a rubbish :stuck_out_tongue:

There are many ways. If you can just totally delete the first few
sectors of the stick, its enough. For instance, in Linux:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX coun=15

Then you can use anything else to format it again. For instance, use
fdisk to create a new partition table, then create a new partition, then
mkfs to format it. Or use gparted.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

5

Thank you guys, your comments are very informative. I wouldn’t be scared again if sth goes wrong with any hard drive anymore. The Linux world has offered me a lot of challenges so far. One thing that I would never forget about linux is that there is always an answer for any kind of problem.

6

This is still a bug IMHO, and quite a serious one, as it mainly affects newer users of opensuse, and/or those completely new to linux. If someone’s first experience with linux is that it “ruins” a piece of their hardware, they might well return to the “safety” of MSWin.

It is strange that it only affects a few. As 13.1 is on the horizon, I might do some experiments with all of my USB sticks, to see if it is still reliably reproducible.

https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/install-boot-login/467985-how-remove-opensuse-live-cd-kde-partition-usb-stick-3.html

https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/install-boot-login/489757-iso-torrent-usb-issues.html

(probably)

https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/install-boot-login/467766-no-access-live-usb-limited-capacity.html

https://forums.opensuse.org/franaais-french/aide-et-support/aide-ganarale/470473-clef-usb-non-bootable-apras-un-live-usb-opensuse-fonctionnel.html

https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/hardware/471799-cant-write-my-usb-thumb-drive.html

7

On 2013-09-21 09:46, wakou wrote:
>
> This is still a bug IMHO, and quite a serious one, as it mainly affects
> newer users of opensuse,

There is no bug in openSUSE. There is a bug in Windows format software
that is unable to cope.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

8

On 2013-09-21 15:03, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2013-09-21 09:46, wakou wrote:
>>
>> This is still a bug IMHO, and quite a serious one, as it mainly affects
>> newer users of opensuse,
>
> There is no bug in openSUSE. There is a bug in Windows format software
> that is unable to cope.

I have written a section on the wiki page on how to recover the USB
stick after use for installation, plus some other changes to the same
page. It may not be all visible yet, till it gets accepted.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

9

Robin, I don’t use Windows. And some of the users asking were not using windows either:

“Well as I said I tried using the YAST Partitioner and fdisk as well, neither had any effect on these ‘ghost’ partitions and the YAST Partitioner even threw up error messages.”

All good I did the installation but now I cannot make my USB stick the way it was before the usage of imagewriter!!
When I plug it on the PC it always shows me 2 partitions, the first has the installation files. No matter what I tried I cannot delete the first partition because it is read-only!!

I also tried from windoze but there the installation partition seems non existant! And I can format the USB normally but at opensuse 12.1 I see again the ghost read-only partition with the 12.1 installation! YaST partitioner was not helpful at all…

Sorry but you’re (partially) wrong there. I have two USB sticks, both different sizes and from different manufacturers, which had the Opensuse 12.1 KDE x86_64 image written onto them with Suse Studio Imagewriter.

In both cases no matter which partitioner I tried (YAST Partitioner, cfdisk, fdisk) the partition table was not properly deleted/re-initialised. I tried the expert option in the YAST partitioner that creates a new partition table, I tried umpteen times to delete all partitions and create a new partition table in cfdisk and fdisk. But no luck - I even kept getting errors from the YAST partitioner and no matter what computer I inserted the USB stick into Dolphin kept showing the ‘ghost’ partitions, by which I mean ‘Opensuse live KDE’ (whatever it’s called) partition plus another one that none of the partitioning programs saw.

The only thing that helped was letting dd run for half a minute or so writing zeroes to the first few MB’s of the USB stick. IMHO this is a serious bug, even if it doesn’t occur in all cases, since it forces ordinary users to run an incredibly dangerous dd command to get back usage of their USB stick after using it to install Opensuse. Try explaining to someone who’s not experienced with Linux how they should carefully find out which /dev/sdX device their USB stick is, otherwise the command could destroy everything on their computer!

]Well as I said I tried using the YAST Partitioner and fdisk as well, neither had any effect on these ‘ghost’ partitions and the YAST Partitioner even threw up error messages.

In cfdisk I deleted all the partitions, had it write that to the disk. Then exited cfdisk, physically removed and re-inserted the USB stick. After doing this I still saw the ghost partitions.

Only dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX worked, and I only needed to run it for 20 seconds or so, ie. I didn’t need to write zeroes to the whole USB stick. So I can only guess that the LiveCD image or imagewriter is writing the partition table in a funny way or place that confuses most partitioning programs.

I am having that problem too. Currently I am trying the zero dd dump on the stick. I also tried several tools (windows 7, yast, testdisk) to remove the live cd partition but it still appeared as ghost.

I’ve got a Sandisk USB drive (4GB) that I used to install openSuSE 12.1 KDE from. I’ve since moved to tumbleweed, but whenever I mount the drive it won’t let me write to it. I’ve formatted the drive many times. I’ve formatted it as ext3, FAT32, NTFS, nothing will let me write to it. Whenever I plug it in, Dolphin mounts it as “Sandisk Cruzer Micro” and also as “openSuSE Live CD KDE”. I can’t understand why it wants to mount it as the Live CD even though I’ve removed entire partitions, recreated partitions tables, I’ve tried almost everything I can think of. I even tried to force it to mount it as /media/USB through the yast partition tool. Any ideas, guys?
This last one was from me:

Even if all of these people were using windows (and they are not), to have their hardware rendered unusable by what might be their first (and would certainly be their last) experience of opensuse, is, if not an actual bug, is a very serious PR mistake. Surely imagewriter in both its linux and windows versions could have a little utility included that restored the thumbdrive to a working condition, and a warning on the write-opensuse-to-thumb screen, that it is needed. Demanding that linux newcomers dd if=/dev/zeroes or if=/dev/random when a slip of the kb or a lack of complete familiarity could delete a lifetime’s work, risks, at least giving the wrong impression?

10

ps, I don’t mean to imply that your wiki will not be informative and useful, I just think that new users should not be put in a position where they have to search for one.

11

Yes, that would be a good addition.

12

On 2013-09-21 21:16, nrickert wrote:
>
> wakou;2586642 Wrote:
>> Surely imagewriter in both its linux and windows versions could have a
>> little utility included that restored the thumbdrive to a working
>> condition, and a warning on the write-opensuse-to-thumb screen, that it
>> is needed.
>
> Yes, that would be a good addition.

But again, that is not a bug in openSUSE install media. It would be a
bug in imagewriter, or all that software that failed recovering the stick.

You may open such a bugzilla against it.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

13

On 2013-09-21 20:46, wakou wrote:
>
> ps, I don’t mean to imply that your wiki will not be informative and
> useful, I just think that new users should not be put in a position
> where they have to search for one.

New users HAVE to read the instructions before starting a new task they
know very little about. The onus is on them.

I just destroyed my 12.3 install media, a usb stick, reformatting it as
vfat, in under a minute, just using fdisk and mkfs.vfat. Not a single
problem nor error. Then I re-plugged it in, and the system recognized it
instantly, and I could write files to it.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

14

It’s not really a bug at all, in my opinion. That’s more of a suggestion for an OpenFate request. Personally, I use “dd_rescue” so a change to imagewriter doesn’t affect me.

I’ll note that the “live-fat-stick” script doesn’t future problems for reuse of the USB, though I think it only works for 32-bit media (the UEFI stuff on recent 64-bit media confuse the script).

15

On 2013-09-22 04:46, nrickert wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2586697 Wrote:
>> But again, that is not a bug in openSUSE install media. It would be a
>> bug in imagewriter, or all that software that failed recovering the
>> stick.
>
> It’s not really a bug at all, in my opinion. That’s more of a
> suggestion for an OpenFate request. Personally, I use “dd_rescue” so a
> change to imagewriter doesn’t affect me.

I don’t think it is a bug, either.

It is just the way it is.

> I’ll note that the “live-fat-stick” script doesn’t future problems for
> reuse of the USB, though I think it only works for 32-bit media (the
> UEFI stuff on recent 64-bit media confuse the script).

Yesterday I documented the restore procedure in the wiki, same page as
documents how to “burn” the iso on a usb stick. And I tested the
procedure myself, “destroying” my 12.3 stick, ie, making it writeable
again as FAT. It works just fine.

The problem is that it has to be repartitioned first, then formatted.

And even then, the first sector (the MBR) of the stick contains
information that identifies the stick as a CDrom, which is the initial
or main hurdle that most graphical tools find in attempting to restore
the stick. They think it is not a stick but a CDROM, and bail out.

So the full procedure is erasing the first 100⁽¹⁾ sector with dd, then
partition, and format. 3 steps.

If someone wants to create a windows/linux tool to do that easily, that
would be nice. Me, I do not need it.

(1) Interestingly, the information that marks the stick as a cdrom is
not (only) in the MBR, nor in the first 16 sectors.


> Telcontar:~ # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdf count=15
> 15+0 records in
> 15+0 records out
> 7680 bytes (7.7 kB) copied, 0.0256745 s, 299 kB/s
> Telcontar:~ # file -s /dev/sdf
> /dev/sdf: # ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem data 'openSUSE-12.3-DVD-x86_640110    ' (bootable)
> Telcontar:~ #

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

16

Experienced this as well. But, have a look at this ( I didn’t bother decreasing the count value to see where it stops working OK ):


# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb count=100000
100000+0 records gelezen
100000+0 records geschreven
51200000 bytes (51 MB) gekopieerd, 45,7717 s, 1,1 MB/s
laptop:/home/knurpht # file -s /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb: data
17

On 2013-09-22 15:06, Knurpht wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2586744 Wrote:
>> (1) Interestingly, the information that marks the stick as a cdrom is
>> not (only) in the MBR, nor in the first 16 sectors.

> Experienced this as well. But, have a look at this ( I didn’t bother
> decreasing the count value to see where it stops working OK ):

A count of 100 works. I guess that 64 might work too.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

18

I had same problem. If you have some free space left on the USb stick then burn another small ISO file on it (not an OS type) After that I was able to fully format the USB stick again.

19

Little correction, sometimes you need to do it as follows :

Put a small ISO on the available space (not an OS), format again (It might say could not complete format); Remove USB stick, insert it again and do a new format. After that my USB stick was completely empty

20

There is a Windows utility called BootIce that works extremely well for these sorts of issues. I have downloaded and installed quite a few Linux distros recently. Most do not cause any problems and the USB stick can just be erased and/or formatted to return to full capacity. On the rare occasion that the stick does not show full capacity, BootIce can repartition and format as necessary, and it does so very quickly (seconds) in my experience. Of course, you do need access to a Windows machine to run it, but it’s a super nice utility (and free).