On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 1:58 AM, Mick <michaelkintz...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tuesday 04 Oct 2011 06:27:50 Paul Hartman wrote: >> On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 12:18 AM, Mick <michaelkintz...@gmail.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)
