USB flash write protect

[William Park]

On Sat, Apr 09, 2005 at 06:28:17PM +0000, Jason Shein wrote:
> On April 9, 2005 05:25 pm, William Park wrote:
> >     dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
> >     fdisk /dev/sda      # partition it to your need
> >     mkdosfs /dev/sdaX
> >     mount /dev/sdaX /mnt/hd
> 
> Thats what I tried in the first place.
> 
> It always seems to work, but then when you try to mount it it returns:
> 
> mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1,
>        missing codepage or other error
>        In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
>        dmesg | tail  or so
> 
> 
> even when I specify the filesystem type.
> 
> Really funny thing I found out though. Just for kicks, I thought I
> would try it on a WinXP machine. It says the filesystem is not
> formatted, so would I like to format it. I select yes, then I watch in
> amazement  as it starts to format the stick.
> 10%...30%....60%...100%...120%..145%...ERROR -> huh? I think I have to
> get a screenshot of this one.

Then, nuke the fucking thing...
    
    cat /dev/zero > /dev/sda
    mkdosfs -I /dev/sda
    mount /dev/sda /mnt/hd

Note: use the whole device /dev/sda, rather than one of its partition.

-- 
William Park <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org>, Toronto, Canada
Slackware Linux -- because it works.
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