CentOS - Jun 2009 - Trouble (?) reformatting flash drive to include former U3 partition

Semi-OT?

I just got a new SanDisk 8GB flash drive, and, as usual, it came with
the U3 software (for Windoze) on a "CD" partition and considerably
less than 8GB on the disk partition.  I put it into my WinXP portable
and told U3 to delete itself, but I still can't get at the old U3 part
of the drive.  I've tried WinXP's format command, disk management and
CentOS's fdisk, and nothing will give me more than 7,872,512 bytes per
cylinder, times 1019 cylinders yields 8,022,089,728 bytes.  Is that
right, or should there be more?  fdisk also reports that the drive has
8029 "MB", or 8029470208 bytes, which is 7,380,480 bytes difference
(until it gets allocated into the 8,022,089,728 bytes of the
partition) - I'm thinking this is a standard formatting loss.

My 4GB flash drive has 4,096,189,440 bytes on it, and twice that would
be 8,192,378,880, which is a difference of 170,289,152 bytes, or about
162+MB.  The former "CD" partition (which is invisible, so far) only
had 8,645,202 bytes used on it, which leaves a huge amount of room to
spare of inaccessible empty space.

What am I missing?  Or is that just the way it is?  (The package only
says "Some capacity is not available for data storage."  That
doesn't
really tell me enough.)

Thanks.

mhr

On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 11:29 PM, MHR<mhullrich at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Semi-OT?
>
> I just got a new SanDisk 8GB flash drive, and, as usual, it came with
> the U3 software (for Windoze) on a "CD" partition and
considerably
> less than 8GB on the disk partition. ?I put it into my WinXP portable
> and told U3 to delete itself, but I still can't get at the old U3 part
> of the drive. ?I've tried WinXP's format command, disk management
and
> CentOS's fdisk, and nothing will give me more than 7,872,512 bytes per
> cylinder, times 1019 cylinders yields 8,022,089,728 bytes. ?Is that
> right, or should there be more? ?fdisk also reports that the drive has
> 8029 "MB", or 8029470208 bytes, which is 7,380,480 bytes
difference
> (until it gets allocated into the 8,022,089,728 bytes of the
> partition) - I'm thinking this is a standard formatting loss.
>
> My 4GB flash drive has 4,096,189,440 bytes on it, and twice that would
> be 8,192,378,880, which is a difference of 170,289,152 bytes, or about
> 162+MB. ?The former "CD" partition (which is invisible, so far)
only
> had 8,645,202 bytes used on it, which leaves a huge amount of room to
> spare of inaccessible empty space.
>
> What am I missing? ?Or is that just the way it is? ?(The package only
> says "Some capacity is not available for data storage." ?That
doesn't
> really tell me enough.)
>
By comparison, I also have a Kingston 8GB flash drive, with the U3
partition removed, and it shows 7916608 1k blocks (in df), whereas the
8GB Sandisk only shows 7818752 (so far).

Relevance uncertain....

mhr

MHR wrote:
> Semi-OT?
> 
> I just got a new SanDisk 8GB flash drive, and, as usual, it came with
> the U3 software (for Windoze) on a "CD" partition and
considerably
> less than 8GB on the disk partition.  I put it into my WinXP portable
> and told U3 to delete itself, but I still can't get at the old U3 part
> of the drive.  I've tried WinXP's format command, disk management
and
> CentOS's fdisk, and nothing will give me more than 7,872,512 bytes per
> cylinder, times 1019 cylinders yields 8,022,089,728 bytes.  Is that
> right, or should there be more?  fdisk also reports that the drive has
> 8029 "MB", or 8029470208 bytes, which is 7,380,480 bytes
difference
> (until it gets allocated into the 8,022,089,728 bytes of the
> partition) - I'm thinking this is a standard formatting loss.
If you go into fdisk's "expert" mode and set the geometry to
31 heads, 31 sectors/track, 16319 cylinders you can utilize
the full 8029470208 bytes.

-- 
Bob Nichols     "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.
                 Do NOT delete it.

From: MHR <mhullrich at gmail.com>
> I just got a new SanDisk 8GB flash drive, and, as usual, it came with
> the U3 software (for Windoze) on a "CD" partition and
considerably
> less than 8GB on the disk partition.  I put it into my WinXP portable
> and told U3 to delete itself, but I still can't get at the old U3 part
> of the drive.  I've tried WinXP's format command, disk management
and
> CentOS's fdisk, and nothing will give me more than 7,872,512 bytes per
> cylinder, times 1019 cylinders yields 8,022,089,728 bytes.  Is that
> right, or should there be more?  fdisk also reports that the drive has
> 8029 "MB", or 8029470208 bytes, which is 7,380,480 bytes
difference
> (until it gets allocated into the 8,022,089,728 bytes of the
> partition) - I'm thinking this is a standard formatting loss.
Maybe there is some reserved "good sectors" space in order to handle
(take the place of) bad sectors?
I don't really know how bad-sectors handling works...

JD