Re: [gentoo-user] Strange partition on USB stick

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 1:58 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@×××××.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday 04 Oct 2011 06:27:50 Paul Hartman wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 12:18 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@×××××.com> wrote:
>> > On Tuesday 04 Oct 2011 04:39:45 Adam Carter wrote:
>> >> If the data is important, I'd use ddrescue to create an image of the
>> >> drive, then run testdisk over that image to see if it can untangle the
>> >> partition table mess. Both are in portage.
>> >
>> > Well, that's the thing:  I'm not sure that there is a mess.  At least not
>> > as far as parted is concerned, which can read the partition table
>> > properly.
>> >
>> > I suspect that fdisk (unlike parted) is not capable of reading the device
>> > correctly.
>> >
>> > I forgot to say that when mounted the USB stick shows not partitions
>> > (i.e. there is no sdb1, sdb2, etc.)  To access the fs I must do
>> > something like:
>> >
>> > pmount /dev/sdb
>> >
>> > and then all is lists under /media/sdb.  It is like a big floppy.
>>
>> I think that's your answer. The "partition table" looks funny because
>> it isn't one. :) It is somewhat common. I've had some myself that are
>> like that.
>
> If there isn't a partition table, then why fdisk sees /dev/sdb1-4 with
> somewhat strange ID types?

It's misinterpreting the data that happens to be there because it
makes the assumption that it's a partition table even though it's not.

You can create a real partition table on that device and reformat, if
you want. (Note that some flash-based devices suffer degraded
performance if you repartition or reformat them because they come with
specially-aligned FAT tables from the factory)