Invalid fdisk partition table found (fwd)

[Robert]

On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 19:07:57 -0700 (MST)
Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 26 Nov 2011, Robert wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> >
> ...
> > 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.
> 
> Creating an MS-DOS layout with gpart(8), where the disk is da0:
> 
> # gpart destroy -F da0
> da0 destroyed
> # gpart create -s mbr da0
> da0 created
> # gpart add -t "\!11" da0
> da0s1 added

Warren,

Thanks for hanging in there with me. I am about ready to give up, but
here is where everything stands now.

[robert at dell64] ~> gpart destroy -F da1
da1 destroyed
[robert at dell64] ~> sudo gpart create -s mbr da1
Password:
da1 created
[robert at dell64] ~> sudo gpart add -t "\!11" da1
da1s1 added
[robert at dell64] ~> gpart show da1
=>   32  60448  da1  MBR  (29M)
     32  60448    1  fat32  (29M)

[robert at dell64] ~> newfs_msdos -F32 /dev/da1s1
/dev/da1s1: 60296 sectors in 7537 FAT32 clusters (4096 bytes/cluster)
BytesPerSec=512 SecPerClust=8 ResSectors=32 FATs=2 Sectors=60448
Media=0xf0 SecPerTrack=32 Heads=64 HiddenSecs=0 FATsecs=59
RootCluster=2 FSInfo=1 Backup=2


[robert at dell64] ~> sudo mount_msdosfs /dev/da1s1 /mnt
mount_msdosfs: /dev/da1s1: Invalid argument

[robert at dell64] ~> fdisk /dev/da1
******* Working on device /dev/da1 *******
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=29 heads=64 sectors/track=32 (2048 blks/cyl)

parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=29 heads=64 sectors/track=32 (2048 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 32, size 59360 (28 Meg), flag 80 (active)
	beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
	end: cyl 28/ head 63/ sector 32
The data for partition 2 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 3 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 4 is:
<UNUSED>

[robert at dell64] ~> sudo gpart destroy da1
Password:
gpart: Device busy

[robert at dell64] ~> dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/da1
0+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes transferred in 0.000018 secs (0 bytes/sec)

[robert at dell64] ~> gpart show da1
gpart: No such geom: da1.

[robert at dell64] ~> 
Now I lost the info that I created with gpart. 

> 
> 11 is 0x0b, the FAT32 partition type.  There might be a more mnemonic 
> string for it, this is the first time I've ever used gpart for FAT32. 
> The exclamation is for gpart/GPT, and the backslash is to keep the
> shell from messing with it.
> 
> # gpart show da0
> =>      63  15662997  da0  MBR  (7.5G)
>          63  15662997    1  fat32  (7.5G)
> 
> # ls /dev/da0*
> /dev/da0	/dev/da0s1
> # newfs_msdos -F32 /dev/da0s1
> 
> fdisk(8) may be easier, just set the partition type to 11.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> What happened to make the one card show 16G?

I wish I knew :-). I was doing everything that you and Julian suggested
and somewhere along the line it started showing 16G. Yesterday I got it
to show FAT32 (tyoe 12) along with 16G but on da1 without a s1. I then
put it in a WinXP box but it did not even bring up the drive. When I
put it back in the FreeBSD box it was back to 28MB. This is the card
that I show above.

It acts like there is some sort of write protect on sector 1 or the
cards are defective. 
Robert