my friend's ODD usb stick..:-(

[sammy2fish]

It is a BiM usb stick...http://www.tln-canada.com/index.php?x=0 only 256-megs.  Guess his wife got it in some contest thing.

He brought it over to my place like an hour ago.  We/I were out to kill the enviroment on it.  Easier said than done.

Went to "local disks" and unmounted it.  Clicked on type and picked fat32.  Formatted it.  Clicked on Konqueror in super-user-mode.  It STILL has the same three files:  1) autorun.inf  2) launcher.exe  3) Welcome to the Next Wave.mp3.

Booted to Win7, and clicked on it.  It still has the AUTORUN, and DISK_IMG files on it.  Is it at all possible to totally wipe this stick or not...?

[T6]

how many partitions it has?

[sammy2fish]

T6, thx for the reply.

Only one, seeing it's 256-megs...

[T6]

it can't see 256 mbs, it should see 240 or less

some usb sticks come with a hidden partition identified as a cdrom in read only mode that is very annoying, even under linux

sometimes the usb drive can have a lock to prevent any file deletion(possible with a older usb drive)

have you tried to delete the files as root?

[menotu]

Is it a Sandisk U3 ?

My U3 had a Launcher programme in an "hidden" partition. This then opened a menu system whereby you could then open the pre-installed mobile apps (Mobile Firefox etc) and get to your data.

If I remember rightly, the 2GB one I had required a password to open (in Windows) and only then were you able to see and format that hidden partition and scrub the thing clean.

[Was_Just19]

Run
fdisk -l
from the terminal to show the details of the device

[sammy2fish]

Run
fdisk -l
from the terminal to show the details of the device

The stick in super-user Kongueror mode shows two prompts.
   AUTORUN
   DISK_IMG

Right clicked on AUTORUN in terminal:
[root@localhost AUTORUN]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf65671da

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1      121602   976759808    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x618fe19e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        6531    52460226    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2            6532        8652    17035264    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb3            8652      115865   861184000    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb4          115866      121601    46074420    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5          115866      117212    10819746   83  Linux
/dev/sdb6          117213      117615     3237066   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb7          117616      121601    32017513+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 260 MB, 260628480 bytes
2 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4040 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 126 * 512 = 64512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0047b627

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *           1        4040      254504    b  W95 FAT32
[root@localhost AUTORUN]#

Right clicked on DISK_IMG in terminal:
[root@localhost DISK_IMG]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf65671da

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1      121602   976759808    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x618fe19e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        6531    52460226    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2            6532        8652    17035264    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb3            8652      115865   861184000    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb4          115866      121601    46074420    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5          115866      117212    10819746   83  Linux
/dev/sdb6          117213      117615     3237066   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb7          117616      121601    32017513+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 260 MB, 260628480 bytes
2 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4040 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 126 * 512 = 64512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0047b627

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *           1        4040      254504    b  W95 FAT32
[root@localhost DISK_IMG]#


...and yes in does have a "hidden partition identified as a cdrom in read only".  Wiping this stick is not a matter of life and death.  Just a game to see if we/I can win-out against this thing.....

[Was_Just19]

Code: [Select]

Disk /dev/sdc: 260 MB, 260628480 bytes
2 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4040 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 126 * 512 = 64512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0047b627

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *           1        4040      254504    b  W95 FAT32
That shows just one FAT32 partition on the stick.

If you want to experiment with this to see what you can do then there are a couple of things to try .....

1.  Securely wipe the contents of the existing partition and see if that has any effect on the sticks operation.
You can do this  -  being VERY careful - using the dd command, to write zeros to the partition.
dd  if=/dev/zero  of=/dev/sdxy   bs=4096 conv=notrunc    where x is the drive letter and y is the partition number.
Be very sure you have picked the correct drive & partition. If you write to the wrong partition the overwritten data is unrecoverable.

2. If that does not have any effect you can wipe the drive structure, again using the dd command. If you do this you will need to recreate the partition table and create a new partition ....... maybe use fdisk to create these. The dd command for this would be
dd  if=/dev/zero  of=/dev/sdx   bs=512 count=2
Then use fdisk to recreate the partition table
fdisk   /dev/sdx
then choose "m" for help and "o" to "create a new empty DOS partition table"
Once the partition table is recreated you are free to create some partitions on the stick.

In general, if it were my stick, I would try the above first to see if any of it made a change.
I would be careful to do it in sequence and check between operations to see what the effect is.
Have a read of the man pages for fdisk and dd .......  don't just follow the above blindly as I am prone to typing errors .......  and with those commands that is one thing you cannot afford!!!!!!!!

regards