[SOLVED] Question on flash drive partitioning

[Ahau]

Hi Guys,

I recently purchased a new flashdrive (8GB Kingston Data Traveler 101 G2). It came with one FAT32 partition, and I decided that I'd rather have an EXT partition for porteus, with a separate FAT partition for sharing with windows.

I used the KDE partitioning tool to create a 5.5GB EXT2 partition at the front of the drive, and set the boot flag. I then formatted the remainder of the drive as FAT32, with the LBA flag. It works perfectly for porteus -- both drives are found and mounted. But it does not work with Windows. It loads one external USB device (F:/), and when I click on it, windows says it is not formatted. When I tried to format it, I realized that it was the 5.5GB partition -- so windows detects the EXT2 partition, and of course cannot read it, and it doesn't find the 2 GB FAT32 partition at all.

So, my question is this: in order for windows to see my FAT partition, does it need to be placed at the front of the drive, with the EXT2 partition at the back of the drive? Or, perhaps there's something I've missed in the formatting procedure (setting flags, etc)?

I would prefer to have my EXT2 partition at the front of the drive, because I keep all of my porteus data in /mnt/sdb1, and I hate having to think about which drive I'm using, where I have porteus on that drive, etc.

Thanks!

[brokenman]

So, my question is this: in order for windows to see my FAT partition, does it need to be placed at the front of the drive, with the EXT2 partition at the back of the drive?

Yes.

[Ahau]

why does windows have to suck so hard?

[82issa]

@Ahau
Did you check to see if the partition shows up in the mmc under windows. Start>run>mmc file>add/remove snappin>local mahine> disk management. Sometimes the mkfs.vfat messes up the partition to where it is hidden. you can format that second partition from mmc but it might not allow you to do fat32, it might only allow for ntfs. but under there you should be able to see all partitions hidden or not, if it doesn't show you partition table is corupt. format that second partiton from widows, it will be much easier to be seen from windows.

Posted after 6 minutes 11 seconds:

So, my question is this: in order for windows to see my FAT partition, does it need to be placed at the front of the drive, with the EXT2 partition at the back of the drive?

Yes.

sorry broken man you are wrong here

[brokenman]

sorry broken man you are wrong here
Yes i am.

If you create the dos partition from within linux and as the last partition windows will in fact see the partition, but won't allow you to open it without formatting. It doesn't recognize the allocation. Using the win disk manager you can see BOTH partitions, and from there format the last partition (even in FAT32) and it then becomes available in windows.

Nowadays i don't spend much time in windows ... i should have delved further before answering.

[Ahau]

well, I messed around with mmc quite a bit, and it did see both partitions. however, it would only ever assign a drive letter to the ext2 partition (first partition). it showed the second (FAT) partition, but when I right clicked and tried to format it, windows told me the drive was not enabled, and I needed to reboot. rebooting didn't change that. I googled a bit, and it sounds like a known issue in windows XP pro (I don't think I gave my version info before)--it won't recognize a second partition on a flash drive.

So, I wound up deleting my ext partiton, reformatting the entire drive as FAT (in windows), then using KDE partition manager to create an ext2 partition as the second patition. Not exactly what I wanted, but it will at least allow me to share data.

Thanks for your help, 82issa and brokenman!

[82issa]

Would it allow you to delete that partition? Then recreate partition 2 from the mmc? Might allow you to format after that. I talked to my brother he says "Why the hell wouldn't you use ntfs?" He isn't the biggest fan of linux. You know if you used cfdisk for partitioning and you specified the type of filesystem on the partitions. You do not have to format that partition as such. You can use whatever format you like. So create two partitions from windows. Just go ahead format the both of them fat32 or ntfs from windows. Remove data storage device and plug into linux box. Then reformat the first partition only from linux as ext2,3.... you know what you would prefer as the primary partition. Even when you create a Dual booting machine with both linux and windows. It is so much easier to do it with windows installed first, so you don't wipe out your boot sector, and have to hassle around with that after the fact. So create partitions from windows, format desired partitions from windows, move the device to a linux machine or boot your live-cd then format from linux the last of those partitions. Then tool around with boot loader. Should work like a charm at that point.

[Ahau]

It might work in later versions, but not in XP. mmc would not let me add a second partition, no matter what I tried.

[82issa]

Stupid Windows. Can't do anything. except open, close, and break. Just hit it with a rock.

[nateohlson]

i came across this forum and i was reminded about how this very problem pissed me off so i created an account just to help...

you need to flip the removable media bit on the device so windows recognizes it as a fixed/local disk and not a removable media...then both partitions will be mounted

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=21572

works for flash drives..just might work for larger volumes

[Ahau]

Thanks for the tip!!

[Carpintonto]

This works on XP-Pro

http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/multipartufd

The latest versions of RMPrepUSB (2.1.650 and later) include an option to choose which partition to make visible to Windows using the Drive - Set Windows accessible partition (Ctrl-O) function which will read the existing partition table and ask which partition you want to make the first one.

Even after installing 2.1 to first 4GB ext4 partition, testing persistence, then editing 16GB device to remove 2nd partition, move 1st partition to the end of the device, and creating a new 2nd partition to fill the front of the device,

XP wouldn't see it.

I ran RMPrepUSB Drive -> Set Windows accessible partition (Ctrl-O), chose 2

Voila! FAT32 partition is all that XP sees, or needs to see!