Invalid fdisk partition table found (fwd)

[Robert]

On Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:29:51 -0700 (MST)
Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Nov 2011, Robert wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:45:37 -0700 (MST)
> > Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, 24 Nov 2011, Robert wrote:
> >>
> >>> [robert at dell64] ~> sudo gpart destroy -F da1
> >>> da1 destroyed

<clip>

> >> And it starts with a default table equal to the size of the drive.
> >
> > Is it supposed to still show sysid 165 ?
> >
> > I was under the impression that dd if=/dev/zero would clean out
> > everything including sector 1.
> 
> The partition table was cleared, that's why it said "invalid fdisk 
> partition table found".  Rather than starting with an invalid table,
> it created a valid default table in memory.
> 
> >> Do both cards report the same size?
> >
> > Yes..sort of 28, 29 MB

Some difference today. Not sure at what point this happened but one of
my CF cards now reads:

[robert at dell64] ~> fdisk /dev/da1
******* Working on device /dev/da1 *******
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=2057 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)

Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=2057 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)

fdisk: invalid fdisk partition table found
Media sector size is 512
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
    start 63, size 33045642 (16135 Meg), flag 80 (active)
	beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
	end: cyl 8/ head 254/ sector 63
The data for partition 2 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 3 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 4 is:
<UNUSED>

Now showing 16GB but still not right.

[robert at dell64] ~> sudo gpart destroy -F da1
Password:
da1 destroyed
[robert at dell64] ~> gpart create -s MBR da1
da1 created
[robert at dell64] ~> gpart add -t freebsd -s 15G da1
da1s1 added
[robert at dell64] ~> gpart set -a active -i 1 da1
active set on da1s1
[robert at dell64] ~> gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot0 da1
bootcode written to da1
[robert at dell64] ~> ls -l /dev/da1*
crw-rw----  1 root  operator    0, 145 Nov 26 08:48 /dev/da1
crw-rw----  1 root  operator    0, 129 Nov 26 13:48 /dev/da1s1
[robert at dell64] ~> sudo mount /dev/da1s1 /mnt
mount: /dev/da1s1 : Invalid argument

I also did this in single user with the same results. Ideally, I would
like to change these cards to FAT32 but I cannot get there with fdisk
and am not sure how to get there with gpart or if I can.

> 
> If they weren't the same, I was going to suggest maybe they've been 
> heavily used and worn out.  But I don't know if capacity shrinks as 
> blocks go bad and spares are used up, or if they just quit working. 
> And I'd expect them to be very different unless they had the exact
> same usage, like in a mirror.

I haven't had any luck with the second CF card as it still show 29MB. I
will try some more later today or tomorrow.

robert