8 GB Flash drive formatted at 3.7 GB

Bill Davidsen davidsen at tmr.com
Sun Dec 20 00:16:30 UTC 2009


Aaron Konstam wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 23:25 -0600, Robert G. (Doc) Savage wrote: 
>> On Fri, 2009-12-18 at 21:58 -0500, Marcel Rieux wrote:
>>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 6:01 PM, Mikkel <mikkel at infinity-ltd.com> wrote:
>>>> On 12/18/2009 01:59 PM, Marcel Rieux wrote:
>>>>> I have a Kingston Data Traveler 8GB Flash drive that was previously
>>>>> formatted FAT32. I reformatted it ext3 simply by clicking on the icon
>>>>> and choosing "Format", but it still has only 3.7 GB available.
>>>>>
>>>>> Any way around this?
>>>>>
>>>> You reformatted the existing partition. So it is the same size as
>>>> the FAT32 partition. If you want to use the entire drive, you will
>>>> need to re-partition it. You will probably want to use gparted for
>>>> this. You have the choice of creating a second partition, expanding
>>>> the existing partition to use the full drive, or deleting the
>>>> current partition, and creating a new one.
>>> Ar first sight, your suggestion made a lot of sense but I checked the
>>> drive with gparted and it sees only one partition.
>>>
>>> See: http://cjoint.com/data/mtd0lzbfUF.htm
>>>
>>> Thanks for your answer!
>> Mikkel,
>>
>> Have you tried looking at your drive with good ol' fdisk at a root
>> command prompt? If your Kingston is like my Vebatim, the output should
>> look much like this:
>>
>> # fdisk -l /dev/sdb
>>
>> Disk /dev/sdb: 8086 MB, 8086618112 bytes
>> 249 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
>> Units = cylinders of 15438 * 512 = 7904256 bytes
>>
>>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>> /dev/sdb1   *           1        1023     7896506   83  Linux
>>
>> The key part to look for is the "8086 MB". If your 8 GB thumb drive only
>> shows something like 3.7 GB under fdisk, it's borked up internally and
>> you're done.
> I thing borked is too pessimistic an analysis. There is a 4GB area on
> the pen ddrive that is not partitioned nor is it formatted in any way,
> according to fdisk. I wold just ignore the 4GB area and don;r worry
> about it. 

I don't know what you think you see here:
   Disk /dev/sdb: 4045 MB, 4045930496 bytes
   120 heads, 55 sectors/track, 1197 cylinders
   Units = cylinders of 6600 * 512 = 3379200 bytes
   Disk identifier: 0x04030201

      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
   /dev/sdb1               1        1198     3951100    b  W95 FAT32

But the total size (see first line) is 4GB, and it is all in the partition (see 
last line). I have no idea what 4GB you think you see that isn't partitioned, 
and fdisk only allows you to see the partition table, not if an area is 
"formatted in any way" since the contents of partitions or non-partition areas 
of the drive are not examined.

I like fdisk, it isn't very smart and doesn't pretend to be, what it does it 
does correctly.

Other than looking at the /var/log/messages for an HPA message, I would say this 
is a 4GB drive.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot




More information about the fedora-list mailing list