8 GB Flash drive formatted at 3.7 GB

[Bill Davidsen]

Marcel Rieux wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 9:40 PM, Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
>>> If you remember well, I said I formatted the drive by right clicking
>>> on the icon.  If you format sdb, an sdb1 partition will be created. If
>>> you don't have a partition, the drive can't be used.
>>>
>> Whatever gave you that idea?
> 
> As I said, I right clicked on the drive, chose Format and now there's
> an sdb1 partition and no other. I never created it otherwise.
> 
I assume "right click" implies you did this with some GUI tool which did what it 
thought you should do instead of what you asked it to do. I have no experience 
using such, and what experience I have with others using them is only when 
people ask "what did this do?" When it works I don't hear about it. ;-)

Can't really help with GUI tools, sorry.

>> A file system is on a device, partitions are devices too. Try "ls -l
>> /dev/sda*" and look at the first letter, all block devices.
> 
> You're right, my hasty extrapolations were wrong. But I don't believe
> you can get a Flash drive working that will be listed only as /dev/sdb
> any more than you can have a HD working with only /dev/sda. I have no
> idea about arrays, I'm talking about standard desktops with one drive.
> 
> Or, so do I think, cause I've always created  / and /home partitions with Linux.
> 
As I'm sure others will tell you, sure you can.
   mke2fs /dev/sdb
   {tell it yes, do what you asked}
   mkdir -p /tmp/sdb && mount /dev/sdb /tmp/sdb
   df

-- 
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