SOLVED - Can't format flash drive to ext4

[Maurice]

Even if you ad << a lot >> of stuff, it seems to me that either your /tmp or /home/maurice/tmp or /var/cache/apt/archives or something else is filled up with unnecessary stuff.

You can use filelight to see graphically << where >> you have a < very > big folder

I've used both Bleachbits, even the slow sections, and deleted caches and /tmp directories and got the size down to 8gb. Trouble is when I open Synaptic to delete more stuff I get the message -

Unable to write to /var/cache/apt and I can't use Synaptic to get Filelight

[Maurice]

It's OK - I've just added an /apt/partial folder and can access Synaptic.

[Xenaflux]

@Maurice

Instead of Filelight ( in case you don't like it ) you also can install <gnome-utils>
This will install an app called <baobab> which is basically the same as <filelight> but with a directory structure instead of the circular one.
It's in /usr/bin/baobab.

Both do the same thing....show you.....!

[Maurice]

Both do the same thing....show you.....!

Not quite as pretty.  But its the thought that counts.

Thanks

[muungwana]

fat file system and reiserfs seem to work with the drive.This suggests a problem with ext family file system creation tool.

You could try to create the ext4 file using using another distro and check to see if it will work there.

But if I get the message - No device available I can't do anything with it. No?

if i followed the thread correctly,you are getting that when you create a file system using gparted,not when using "mkfs.ext4" straight.

Looking at "dmesg" output after that error could shed some light.

try to create a file system using gparted,when it fail,open the terminal and then run this command and post its result.

dmesg | grep -i sdb

where sdb is the device node address.

[Xenaflux]

..try to create a file system using gparted,...

there is also < KDE Partition Manager > in the repos.
I doubt that there will be a ( much ) difference, but....just saying !

[Maurice]

[quote author=muungwana link=topic=111276.msg950632#msg950632

if i followed the thread correctly,you are getting that when you create a file system using gparted,not when using "mkfs.ext4" straight.

Looking at "dmesg" output after that error could shed some light.

try to create a file system using gparted,when it fail,open the terminal and then run this command and post its result.

dmesg | grep -i sdb

where sdb is the device node address.
[/quote]

The output  was huge - here is the first paragraph - the rest were similar..

sdb: sdb1
sd 57:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
sd 57:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 57:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
scsi 57:0:0:0: [sdb] Unhandled error code
scsi 57:0:0:0: [sdb]  Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
scsi 57:0:0:0: [sdb] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 00 fe 4f 80 00 00 08 00
end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 16666496
Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 2083056
Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 2083056
Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 2083070
Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 2083070
Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 0
Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 0
Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 1
Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 2083071
Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 1
Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 1
sd 58:0:0:0: [sdb] 31326208 512-byte logical blocks: (16.0 GB/14.9 GiB)
sd 58:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 58:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
sd 58:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
sd 58:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 58:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
sd 58:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through

Anything stand out at all?

[Maurice]

there is also < KDE Partition Manager > in the repos.
I doubt that there will be a ( much ) difference, but....just saying !

I installed and tried that but it didn't recognise the usb device either.