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Formatting an SD card

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  Formatting an SD card Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-16 20:44 +0000
    Re: Formatting an SD card Chris Whelan <cawhelan@prejudicentlworld.com> - 2016-01-16 21:31 +0000
      Re: Formatting an SD card Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-16 21:34 +0000
      Re: Formatting an SD card Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-16 22:54 +0000
    Re: Formatting an SD card Jim Price <d1version@hotmail.com> - 2016-01-16 22:08 +0000
      Re: Formatting an SD card Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-16 22:55 +0000
    Re: Formatting an SD card Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> - 2016-01-17 14:04 +0000
      Re: Formatting an SD card Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-17 16:40 +0000
        Re: Formatting an SD card Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> - 2016-01-18 12:06 +0000
          Re: Formatting an SD card Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-18 12:39 +0000
            Re: Formatting an SD card Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> - 2016-01-20 15:50 +0000
              Re: Formatting an SD card Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-20 17:16 +0000
    Re: Formatting an SD card The Real Doctor <ian.groups@btinternet.com> - 2016-01-28 17:38 +0000
      Re: Formatting an SD card Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2016-01-28 18:00 +0000

#19715 — Formatting an SD card

Due to a dodgy USB cable, I've managed to corrupt an SD card such that I
can't recover it. I use a USB card reader to access SD cards from my Mint
17 box, but the dodgy cable means that it's created a bunch of files with
weird names that I can't delete - indeed even if I try it switches the
device into read-only mode and I have to dismount & remount it to get
it back to read-write. If I try and format it with disk utility, the
utility just hangs. If I try and format it with gparted, it says "Scanning
/dev/sdc1" for ever.

Any suggestions? I'm going to try and format it under OS/X and Windows
next.

-- 
Today is Setting Orange, the 33rd day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3181
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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#19716

Huge wrote:

> Due to a dodgy USB cable, I've managed to corrupt an SD card such that I
> can't recover it. I use a USB card reader to access SD cards from my Mint
> 17 box, but the dodgy cable means that it's created a bunch of files with
> weird names that I can't delete - indeed even if I try it switches the
> device into read-only mode and I have to dismount & remount it to get
> it back to read-write. If I try and format it with disk utility, the
> utility just hangs. If I try and format it with gparted, it says "Scanning
> /dev/sdc1" for ever.
> 
> Any suggestions? I'm going to try and format it under OS/X and Windows
> next.

I've corrupted a few SD cards whilst experimenting with a Raspberry Pi. The 
only utility that would make them usable again was Windows.Mac only, I'm 
afraid.

It was this:

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

Chris

-- 
Remove prejudice to reply.

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#19717

On 2016-01-16, Chris Whelan <cawhelan@prejudicentlworld.com> wrote:
> Huge wrote:
>
>> Due to a dodgy USB cable, I've managed to corrupt an SD card such that I
>> can't recover it. I use a USB card reader to access SD cards from my Mint
>> 17 box, but the dodgy cable means that it's created a bunch of files with
>> weird names that I can't delete - indeed even if I try it switches the
>> device into read-only mode and I have to dismount & remount it to get
>> it back to read-write. If I try and format it with disk utility, the
>> utility just hangs. If I try and format it with gparted, it says "Scanning
>> /dev/sdc1" for ever.
>> 
>> Any suggestions? I'm going to try and format it under OS/X and Windows
>> next.
>
> I've corrupted a few SD cards whilst experimenting with a Raspberry Pi. The 
> only utility that would make them usable again was Windows.Mac only, I'm 
> afraid.

Not to worry - I have one of each.


>
> It was this:
>
> https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

Thanks, I'll give it a go if plain old vanilla O/S formatting fails.


-- 
Today is Setting Orange, the 33rd day of The Aftermath in the YOLD 3181
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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#19719

On 2016-01-16, Chris Whelan <cawhelan@prejudicentlworld.com> wrote:
> Huge wrote:
>
>> Due to a dodgy USB cable, I've managed to corrupt an SD card such that I
>> can't recover it. I use a USB card reader to access SD cards from my Mint
>> 17 box, but the dodgy cable means that it's created a bunch of files with
>> weird names that I can't delete - indeed even if I try it switches the
>> device into read-only mode and I have to dismount & remount it to get
>> it back to read-write. If I try and format it with disk utility, the
>> utility just hangs. If I try and format it with gparted, it says "Scanning
>> /dev/sdc1" for ever.
>> 
>> Any suggestions? I'm going to try and format it under OS/X and Windows
>> next.
>
> I've corrupted a few SD cards whilst experimenting with a Raspberry Pi. The 
> only utility that would make them usable again was Windows.Mac only, I'm 
> afraid.
>
> It was this:
>
> https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

Well, it formatted just fine on MacOS with the native utility. Chalk
one up to Cupertino.

-- 
Today is Sweetmorn, the 16th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3182
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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#19718

On 16/01/16 20:44, Huge wrote:
> Due to a dodgy USB cable, I've managed to corrupt an SD card such that I
> can't recover it. I use a USB card reader to access SD cards from my Mint
> 17 box, but the dodgy cable means that it's created a bunch of files with
> weird names that I can't delete - indeed even if I try it switches the
> device into read-only mode and I have to dismount & remount it to get
> it back to read-write. If I try and format it with disk utility, the
> utility just hangs. If I try and format it with gparted, it says "Scanning
> /dev/sdc1" for ever.
>
> Any suggestions? I'm going to try and format it under OS/X and Windows
> next.

Fill it with zeros using dd, put a new partition table on it with 
gparted then try and format it.

-- 
    ╔═╦═╦═════╦═══╗
    ║ ║ ║     ║   ║
  ╔═╝ ║ ║ ║ ║ ║ ╔═╝
  ╚═══╩═╩═╩═╩═╩═╝  -- JimP.

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#19720

On 2016-01-16, Jim Price <d1version@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 16/01/16 20:44, Huge wrote:
>> Due to a dodgy USB cable, I've managed to corrupt an SD card such that I
>> can't recover it. I use a USB card reader to access SD cards from my Mint
>> 17 box, but the dodgy cable means that it's created a bunch of files with
>> weird names that I can't delete - indeed even if I try it switches the
>> device into read-only mode and I have to dismount & remount it to get
>> it back to read-write. If I try and format it with disk utility, the
>> utility just hangs. If I try and format it with gparted, it says "Scanning
>> /dev/sdc1" for ever.
>>
>> Any suggestions? I'm going to try and format it under OS/X and Windows
>> next.
>
> Fill it with zeros using dd, put a new partition table on it with 
> gparted then try and format it.

Nice idea - I shall file that away for next time, thanks!


-- 
Today is Sweetmorn, the 16th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3182
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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#19723

In article <dfvocuF8finU1@mid.individual.net>, Huge wrote:
> If I try and format it with disk utility, the utility just hangs.
> If I try and format it with gparted, it says "Scanning
> /dev/sdc1" for ever.

Disk utility may be a bit too sophisticated for the task in hand ... it 
tries to make sense of the existing filesystem and gets stuck when it 
finds corruptions.

You might have been able to get it to work if you'd used something like 
photorec/testdisk -- or even a simple fsck -- to fix the corruptions 
first.

A more basic formatting utility -- such as mkfs -- would probably have 
worked, too.

-- 
Cheers,
 Daniel.
 

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#19729

On 2016-01-17, Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> wrote:
> In article <dfvocuF8finU1@mid.individual.net>, Huge wrote:
>> If I try and format it with disk utility, the utility just hangs.
>> If I try and format it with gparted, it says "Scanning
>> /dev/sdc1" for ever.
>
> Disk utility may be a bit too sophisticated for the task in hand ... it 
> tries to make sense of the existing filesystem and gets stuck when it 
> finds corruptions.
>
> You might have been able to get it to work if you'd used something like 
> photorec/testdisk -- or even a simple fsck -- to fix the corruptions 
> first.

Couldn't be arsed to fight with fsck - I didn't care about what was on
the card.

> A more basic formatting utility -- such as mkfs -- would probably have 
> worked, too.

Good point. It's been so long since I had to use mkfs, I forgot about it.


-- 
Today is Boomtime, the 17th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3182
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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#19732

In article <dg1ug7Fnte8U3@mid.individual.net>, Huge wrote:
>> A more basic formatting utility -- such as mkfs -- would probably
>> have worked, too.
> 
> Good point. It's been so long since I had to use mkfs, I forgot
> about it.

That seems to me to symptomatic of one of the problems we face with 
Linux. It has some very nice, functional, low-level commandline tools 
(like mkfs) ... but is constantly being criticized for the fact that 
these tools are not "user friendly" because they require commandline 
use.

So, some enterprising soul produces a graphical version ... which then 
suffers feature-creep and becomes an all-singing, all-dancing, 
graphical utility (like disk utility) that do the job of a dozen basic 
commandline tools and comes with its own kitchen sink.

.. which is all very well, but the ability to perform the simple, 
basic, operations without doing the washing up as well has been lost 
along the way, and you can no longer format a drive when the kitchen 
sink is full of dirty inodes and you've run out of detergent.

I almost feel the urge to write a graphical replacement for mkfs that 
does nothing else ... even if it's only a bash script that wraps mkfs 
and uses zenity to give an illusion of GUIness ... but only almost.

(No, not Guinness, that's something else ...)

-- 
Cheers,
 Daniel.
 

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#19733

On 2016-01-18, Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> wrote:
> In article <dg1ug7Fnte8U3@mid.individual.net>, Huge wrote:
>>> A more basic formatting utility -- such as mkfs -- would probably
>>> have worked, too.
>> 
>> Good point. It's been so long since I had to use mkfs, I forgot
>> about it.
>
> That seems to me to symptomatic of one of the problems we face with 
> Linux. It has some very nice, functional, low-level commandline tools 
> (like mkfs) ... but is constantly being criticized for the fact that 
> these tools are not "user friendly" because they require commandline 
> use.

Not by me - I've been adminning Unixey systems for about 30 years. Not
thinking of mkfs is more to do with my advancing age and consequent
poor memory than it is to do with GUIness or otherwise.

Although I do like Guinness.


-- 
Today is Pungenday, the 18th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3182
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#19750

In article <dg44ovF9hfuU4@mid.individual.net>, Huge wrote:
> [I wrote]
>> That seems to me to symptomatic of one of the problems we face with 
>> Linux. It has some very nice, functional, low-level commandline
>> tools (like mkfs) ... but is constantly being criticized for the
>> fact that these tools are not "user friendly" because they require
>> commandline use.
>
> Not by me - I've been adminning Unixey systems for about 30 years.
> Not thinking of mkfs is more to do with my advancing age and
> consequent poor memory than it is to do with GUIness or otherwise.

<smile>

No, the problem I meant was that the Linux world is trying so hard to 
demonstrate to its nay-sayers that everything can be done with GUI 
tools, and that you don't need to drop down to the commandline, that 
the GUI tools are becoming over-sophisticated to the point where -- as 
you found out -- they actually don't to the simple jobs as well as the 
commandline tools they're intended to make redundant.

> Although I do like Guinness.

Stout fellow!

-- 
Cheers,
 Daniel.
 

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#19752

On 2016-01-20, Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> wrote:
> In article <dg44ovF9hfuU4@mid.individual.net>, Huge wrote:
>> [I wrote]
>>> That seems to me to symptomatic of one of the problems we face with 
>>> Linux. It has some very nice, functional, low-level commandline
>>> tools (like mkfs) ... but is constantly being criticized for the
>>> fact that these tools are not "user friendly" because they require
>>> commandline use.
>>
>> Not by me - I've been adminning Unixey systems for about 30 years.
>> Not thinking of mkfs is more to do with my advancing age and
>> consequent poor memory than it is to do with GUIness or otherwise.
>
><smile>
>
> No, the problem I meant was that the Linux world is trying so hard to 
> demonstrate to its nay-sayers that everything can be done with GUI 
> tools, and that you don't need to drop down to the commandline, that 
> the GUI tools are becoming over-sophisticated to the point where -- as 
> you found out -- they actually don't to the simple jobs as well as the 
> commandline tools they're intended to make redundant.

Ahh, I see. And I concur.

>> Although I do like Guinness.
>
> Stout fellow!

:o)


-- 
Today is Setting Orange, the 20th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3182
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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#19782

On 16/01/16 20:44, Huge wrote:
> Any suggestions?

I see you've sorted it, but for the record and for next time, I have had 
success in similar situations formatting the card in a camera.

Ian

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#19783

On 2016-01-28, The Real Doctor <ian.groups@btinternet.com> wrote:
> On 16/01/16 20:44, Huge wrote:
>> Any suggestions?
>
> I see you've sorted it, but for the record and for next time, I have had 
> success in similar situations formatting the card in a camera.

Thank you. That's another good idea worth filing away in what I laughingly
call my "memory".


-- 
Today is Pungenday, the 28th day of Chaos in the YOLD 3182
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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