Error reading pen drive

[Bill Davidsen]

Parshwa Murdia wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Bryn M. Reeves <bmr at redhat.com> wrote:
> 
>> Probably want just 'fdisk /dev/sdb' if you're planning to create
>> partitions and save the table - the -l switch will cause the program to
>> print the current table on sdb and exit.
> 
> 
> Not planning that but only wanted to have the pen drive work well.

It's working fine, no errors on the drive, only you destroyed the partition 
table and all data. At this point I would use fdisk to create a partition (see 
below), and them create a filesystem on the partition.

WHAT KIND OF PARTITION?

Typically these devices come with a FAT16 or VFAT file type. If you ever want to 
use it with any MSFT OS then you should do that. Create a partition and use the 
't' command to set the type, type 'c' is FAT32/LBA and is probably what you 
want. Format the filesystem (/dev/sdb1 not /dev/sdb) with mkfs.vfat (for MS 
compatibility) or mkfs.ext2 (Linux use). Do NOT use ext3 or any other journaling 
filesystem, as it tends to shorten the life of the media.

That should get you back working.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot