USB Stick Oddity

They're not sticks that have hidden encrypted partitions?

Could be but how do I tell?

Andrew

Off the cuff:

a. does the amp specify a maximum size for USB sticks?

b. have you compared the /actual/ size of the partitions on the (nominally) 16 GB sticks? (I've met some which are actually larger than the advertised size)?

c. worth trying one of the new sticks with a single 8 GB parititon?

If you are on liux you might try 'dd'-ing the contents of a working one off and 'dd'ing it onto a non working one.

That should sort out the foramat of the thing to be as identical as its contents.

Remember there is FAT 12, FAT 16 , FAT 32, exFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 to choose from.

Almost certainly it is the file system that is incompatible and re formatting with a lefgacy one is indicated

It looks like yopu need to drop to te cxommand line dos prompt to do it in windopws (howls of laughetr from l,iunux folks who have a GUI app for this

Type " format Z: /fs:FAT " for formatting to FAT

OR Type " format Z: /fs:FAT32 " for formatting to FAT32,

OR Type " format Z: /fs:NTFS " for formatting to NTFS,

OR Type " format Z: /fs:EXFAT " for formatting to EXFAT, where " Z " is the letter of your Memory stick. Press Y=Yes or N=No to proceed/stop the formatting

I'd try plain FAT or FAT16 as it is also known

Or exFAT.

Important to ID what is on the working sticks EXACTLY

I've managed to kick start Win7 disk manager diskmgmt.msc and that reports the partitions as 'simple' and healthy 14.91 GB primary partitions on both the working (OLD) 16 GB Cruzer Blade and the none working (NEW) 16 GB Cruzer Blade. I don't understand why a brand new but apparently genuine one shouldn't be seen by the sound system but work on the PC :(

Andrew

If you're using Windows, Disk Management will show you (and let you edit) the disk partitions and filesystem types graphically.

I generally re-format any such media either 1) in the device it's going to be based in, assuming you can and / or 2) format it on a PC with whatever FS suites the intended need.

Like I just got 4 x 32GB Samsung uSD cards and the first thing I did was reformat them on my PC (XP in this case) and then run H2testw on them to make sure they are genuine (size) etc.

In this case the first one was going to be supporting Raspbian on a RPi and so when it's imaged it could change the FS / partitioning in any case.

Cheers, T i m

By default I format all my sticks in exFAT these days, so that my Mac can see them too.

OK I've re-formatted the non-working new stick as FAT32 (which is what it was and also what the working ones are) but the symptoms remain the same, works OK on the PC but the music player fails to see it, so still very odd. Windows disk manager shows them both the same as having a single primary partition of 14.91 GB.

It almost looks like an electrical / interface issue - still mighty puzzled and in need of help ! And no I have no Unix systems nor the knowledge to drive them if I did :(

Andrew

yes, I agree.

Maybe its more power hungry.Maybe its USB3 and the audio kit only understands USB2. and its not as backass compatible as it is supposed to be

Linux not relevant - its just easier to dig deeper with the linux tools

In addition to the useful answers mentioning possible extra partitions, maximum partition sizes and supported filesystems, another difference between old drives and newer drives is the offset to the first partition.

Drives formatted on older OSes like Windows XP used to start the first partition on sector 63, which with 512-byte sectors gave an offset of

DISKPART> list part

Partition ### Type Size Offset ------------- ---------------- ------- ------- Partition 1 Primary 28 GB 31 KB

Since Windows 7 (or maybe Vista), the offset has been 1MB (1024KB). E.g. on a fairly new 64-GB USB stick:

DISKPART> list part

Partition ### Type Size Offset ------------- ---------------- ------- ------- Partition 1 Primary 57 GB 1024 KB

Both are compatable with operating systems that implement the MBR specification correctly. But simple old devices might hard-code the sector 63 start, causing problems with recent USB sticks.

Something non-compliant in the music player, fighting with a tighter spec in the new sticks would be my guess.

Still could be worth trying different formats for the new sticks. I

Now that sounds quite promising - how do I see the partition info at that low level - presumably at the command prompts somehow?

Reading the printing on the new 'sticks' they call themselves "Cruzer SparK" but were advertised as Blades, whereas the older ones call themselves "Cruzer Blade" Perhaps just marketing speel?

Andrew

dd would fix that.

The sequence would be to boot lunux from a live dvd, and use dd to copy the entire usb disk including partition info, and then use dd to pop it back onto a new one

Or if you have enmough USB ports do a stick to stick clone

dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc BS=4096 or whatever the actual usb sticks end up as

Assuming Windows 10:

1. Start an elevated command prompt (right-click CMD.EXE and select "Run as Administrator").
2. Run DISKPART
3. Type LIST DISK to list the available disks
4. Type SELECT DISK N where N is the number of the disk you want to interrogate.
5. Type LIST PART to list the partitions
6. Type EXIT when done

My recently purchased Cruzer blade sticks had a built-in security arrangement, which meant when I copied something onto them from one computer and tried to see it in another, there was nothing there.

The solution was to put the stick back into the original computer and delete the security files and folders and the file I'd originally copied. I recopied the file I wanted to copy to the second computer back onto the stick, and everything worked fine on both computers after that.

from a "32 GB" Samsung USB3, formatted FAT32 in Windows 10 here:

DISKPART> list part

Partition ### Type Size Offset ------------- ---------------- ------- ------- Partition 1 Primary 29 GB 112 KB

If you don't mind losing the contents, you can just reformat with the appropriate partition alignment settings. Both Windows (DISKPART) and Linux (parted) allow the alignment to be specified at partition creation time.