[Bug 996188] [NEW] Gparted Hosed my USB Thumb Drive

[Cefn]

Public bug reported:

Just a note, not an accusation. I thought I'd repurpose a 1Gb thumb
drive (which I got free with the Economist magazine) to act as a
filesystem for an NSLU2 (an Arm computer which can run a cut-down
Debian). Before beginning on this job, the thumb drive had a functioning
FAT32 filesystem on it which I was able to read and write to.

I proceeded to create various partitions on it (or try to). By the end
of the attempt, and after trying to fix the bugs I was encountering by
trying to do the same with FDisk, I have a Thumb drive which I can't
create a filesystem on at all. Each time I try to do this, GParted
reloads the drive and identifies the target partition as Unknown.

Finally I tried to return it to factory configuration - a single
monolithic FAT32 partition, and it seems I now have a totally dead USB
stick. Writing /dev/zero across the whole stick as /dev/sdb didn't seem
to help either, though I thought that might reset it.

I thought these things were just a series of bytes stored in memory, and
everything else was filesystem metadata conventions. Maybe it decided to
give up at exactly the moment I fired up GParted, but that would be
weird.

Any ideas what happened? Can I get it back?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: gparted 0.8.1-1ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-19.33-generic-pae 3.0.27
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-19-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon May  7 21:55:55 2012
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release i386 (20111012)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gparted
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2012-04-04 (33 days ago)

** Affects: gparted (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: apport-bug i386 oneiric running-unity

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/996188

Title:
  Gparted Hosed my USB Thumb Drive

Status in “gparted” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Just a note, not an accusation. I thought I'd repurpose a 1Gb thumb
  drive (which I got free with the Economist magazine) to act as a
  filesystem for an NSLU2 (an Arm computer which can run a cut-down
  Debian). Before beginning on this job, the thumb drive had a
  functioning FAT32 filesystem on it which I was able to read and write
  to.

  I proceeded to create various partitions on it (or try to). By the end
  of the attempt, and after trying to fix the bugs I was encountering by
  trying to do the same with FDisk, I have a Thumb drive which I can't
  create a filesystem on at all. Each time I try to do this, GParted
  reloads the drive and identifies the target partition as Unknown.

  Finally I tried to return it to factory configuration - a single
  monolithic FAT32 partition, and it seems I now have a totally dead USB
  stick. Writing /dev/zero across the whole stick as /dev/sdb didn't
  seem to help either, though I thought that might reset it.

  I thought these things were just a series of bytes stored in memory,
  and everything else was filesystem metadata conventions. Maybe it
  decided to give up at exactly the moment I fired up GParted, but that
  would be weird.

  Any ideas what happened? Can I get it back?

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
  Package: gparted 0.8.1-1ubuntu4
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-19.33-generic-pae 3.0.27
  Uname: Linux 3.0.0-19-generic-pae i686
  ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
  Architecture: i386
  Date: Mon May  7 21:55:55 2012
  EcryptfsInUse: Yes
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release i386 (20111012)
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: gparted
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2012-04-04 (33 days ago)

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