Recover a usb after using it with win32diskimager

[rsjackson]

Having used this utility to create boots disks for the various packages distributed in this forum , how do I subsequently recover the whole of the usb for another purpose, please ?

In the old days i'd use fdisk I suppose , but with Windows Vista or Win7

[danfoshizzle]

Use the hp USB tool, don't have a link as on my mobile, but should be easy enough to find.

[rsjackson]

thanks very much.

[Wilberforce]

Just repartition with fdisk or similar and then format with the filesystem of your choice.

[rsjackson]

But I think I am correct in saying fdisk is not there , at least not by default, in Windows Vista or 7.

Might be wrong but that was where my question started out.

Thanks

[dwl99]

Flash this image to the drive https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1107587/bootsector.img using Win32diskimager then Windows should offer to create partitions & format it. The link does not work in Firefox for some reason.

[offbeatdave]

Flash this image to the drive https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1107587/bootsector.img using Win32diskimager then Windows should offer to create partitions & format it. The link does not work in Firefox for some reason.

Is it the s in https that causes the problem?

[dwl99]

I have no idea but it works with Internet Explorer.

[offbeatdave]

I've just right clicked it in Firefox (3.6) and it saves fine. If I left click it opens a blank page. As you say, IE automatically gives you the option of saving so I guess it may just be an issue with the default behaviour for *.img file types in Firefox.

[Juggler]

It is a PITA that because Windows sees it as a removable drive that there can only be 1 partition on it.

What I have done to get Windows to format a multi-partitioned USB drive (or any device that windows consider to be removable) is to use a hex editor and write 0's to the first sector.

I use HxD as it lets you see the devices and partitions, plus by default when opening drives it will be read only.

http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

I think it is just a stand alone program, so portable too.

*Warning* if you use the tool and get it wrong it could be nasty.

If you really wanted to you could use this to edit the partition table in sector 0. Just looking at sector 0 now on a Joggler Ubuntu drive, and it looks like the partition table starts at offset 01B8 hex in sector 0.

I tend to overwrite the whole of sector zero with 0's as then it looks like a brand new, unused drive to Windows. Windows should then ask you if you want to format it and will put boot code in there (maybe) and will write a new partition table to the drive as well, which should be the full capacity of the drive.

[offbeatdave]

Bootice usually works for me too (as does the HP tool).

[ilovemyjoggler]

I've had to use the hp usb format tool quite a lot recently (found thanks to this thread btw). It gives a choice of fat 32 or fat 16. Does it matter which I choose - is one better than the other?

[offbeatdave]

I've had to use the hp usb format tool quite a lot recently (found thanks to this thread btw). It gives a choice of fat 32 or fat 16. Does it matter which I choose - is one better than the other?

32

[ilovemyjoggler]

Short and sweet! Thank you.