[ILUG] Can Linux solve a windows problem?

[Declan Moriarty]

On Fri, 2006-05-05 at 16:57 +0100, Kae Verens wrote: 
> Declan Moriarty wrote:
> > Windows XP seems to take the biscuit for messing things up. Latest is a
> > usb disk/mp3 player - a poor kid's ipod. It has a gig, a lcd screen,
> > will record, store mp3s and play. Windows apparently overwrote the early
> > directories. I have heard bad things about formatting these, as you lose
> > functionality.
> > 
> >  It shows 
> > [dec at genius ~]$ df /media/usbdisk
> > Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
> > /dev/sda               1000032    210928    789104  22% /media/usbdisk
> 
> 
> you should be able to clear it using "fdisk /dev/sda" - put a vfat partition 
> on it.

That got very interesting: 

Now the dodgy disk reads like this:

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 1024 MB, 1024311808 bytes
32 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1008 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1984 * 512 = 1015808 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   ?      942426     1027451    84344761   69  Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(68, 13, 10) logical=(942425, 2, 42)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(288, 115, 43) logical=(1027450, 1, 25)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2   ?      857621     1800102   934940732+  73  Unknown
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(371, 114, 37) logical=(857620, 22, 38)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(366, 32, 33) logical=(1800101, 9, 4)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3   ?           2           2           0   74  Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(371, 114, 37) logical=(1, 9, 32)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(372, 97, 50) logical=(1, 9, 31)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda4               1     1731408  1717556736    0  Empty
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(0, 0, 0) logical=(0, 0, 1)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(0, 0, 0) logical=(1731407, 31, 62)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order(end of fdisk o/p) 


The good disks read very similarly. 
Disk /dev/sdb: 257 MB, 257802752 bytes
8 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1015 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 496 * 512 = 253952 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   ?     1568823     3870254   570754815+  72  Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(357, 116, 40) logical=(1568822, 3, 11)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(357, 32, 45) logical=(3870253, 0, 51)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2   ?      340100     4243383   968014120   65  Novell Netware
386
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(288, 115, 43) logical=(340099, 6, 47)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(367, 114, 50) logical=(4243382, 4, 42)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3   ?     3769923     7673205   968014096   79  Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(366, 32, 33) logical=(3769922, 2, 30)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(357, 32, 43) logical=(7673204, 7, 39)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb4   ?           1     7333118  1818613248    d  Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(372, 97, 50) logical=(0, 0, 1)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(0, 10, 0) logical=(7333117, 7, 30)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order(end of fdisk o/p) 

I am concluding that the correct way forward is not to get brave with
fdisk, as it obviously is making no sense of things. You mount /dev/sda,
not sda1; /dev/sdx1 and upwards don't exist on either drive according to
mount. One has to take the figures above with a large dose of
imagination anyhow. df and du are consistent about the space.

The 256k units never showed more than 245k free. I believe some firmware
is in the ram chip also, and hiding above (or below) the ramdisk. If I
partition or format, I lose the firmware. The solution may be in finding
a way to reinstall the firmware, or in cross-installing firmware (256M
into 1G)