Karmic: how to delete /dev/sr1

[Alan Dacey Sr.]

On Saturday 06 March 2010 01:58:09 pm Mirto Silvio Busico wrote:
> Hi all,
> I have an external USB hard disk from Western Digital (model My Passport).
> 
> This unit comes with two partitions, that I see and I can mount:
> 
>     * /dev/sr1 that is understood as a CD
>     * /dev/sdb1 that is a normal NTFS partition
> 
> If I mount the partitions "mount" says:
> 
> ...
> /dev/sr1 on /media/WD SmartWare type udf
> (ro,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=1000)
> /dev/sdb1 on /media/My Passport type fuseblk
> (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096)
> 
> The problem is tah I'm not able to destroy, eliminate, kill :-) the
> /dev/sr1 partition
> 
> With the partitions unmounted, nor "gparted" nor "fdisk" see the damned
> partition
> 
> Trying "sudo fdisk /dev/sr1" I see:
> 
> mirto at msb02:~/script$ sudo fdisk /dev/sr1
> Impossibile scrivere la tabella delle partizioni.
> Nota: la dimensione del settore è 2048 (non 512)
> Il dispositivo non contiene né una tabella delle partizioni DOS valida,
> né una disklabel Sun, SGI od OSF
> Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x0c58531d.
> Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
> After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.
> 
> Attenzione: il flag 0x0000 non valido della tabella delle partizioni 4
> verrà corretto con w(rite)
> 
> Comando (m per richiamare la guida): p
> 
> Disco /dev/sr1: 700 MB, 700448768 byte
> 255 testine, 63 settori/tracce, 21 cilindri
> Unità = cilindri di 16065 * 2048 = 32901120 byte
> Identificativo disco: 0x0c58531d
> 
> Dispositivo Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> 
> Comando (m per richiamare la guida):
> 
> 
> How can I kill this partition?
> 
> 
> Thanks
>     Mirto
> 
> P.S. BTW I use Karmic 64 bit with updates of 4 March

This is an odd day.  I was about to ask the very same thing.  I saved this as 
a draft to send after I tried one last thing:
  I got a free usb stick that has a read-only, write-protected partition that 
  mounts as a cd.  I find this very annoying and have been trying to get rid 
  of it for months.  I either am phrasing my google searches wrong or am 
  using the wrong words.  Whatever I find is all about actual cd drives and 
  not about a usb stick.  I can play with the ownership and such but I can't 
  find a way to get to get it to mount it as something like /dev/sdh1.  It 
  always mounts as /dev/sr1  It is always non-writable so I can't kill the 
  partition.  
  U3 tools do not work.
  Does anybody know where to find out how to do this?

From what I can see, if it is not a U3 partition, you are out of luck unless 
you send it away to a company that can do it.  The secret U3 tools are out on 
the torrent sites.  I will be trying to use some other tools I found, will 
reply with results.

-- 
Alan

"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from 
the support of a cause we believe to be just."
Abraham Lincoln