Invalid fdisk partition table found (fwd)
Robert
traveling08 at cox.net
Mon Nov 28 18:25:16 UTC 2011
On Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:02:55 -0700 (MST)
Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Nov 2011, Robert wrote:
>
> > Thanks for hanging in there with me. I am about ready to give up,
> > but here is where everything stands now.
>
> Before giving up, a few more suggestions. First, check the BIOS
> settings. It's possible the computer has a BIOS that "protects" the
> boot block from viruses by making it read-only. Second, sudo is not
> the same as being root, there are differences. So I'd also suggest
> trying these as root, just in case.
>
I saw nothing in BIOS to suggest any protection. I am doing the testing
on a Dell Precision 490.
I did discover that an external card reader I was using on the Windows
XP computer is defective. It had a bent pin and another recessed pin. I
hope that is not what damaged these cards.
>
> Have these cards
> been heavily used to the point where they may be failing?
I couldn't say for sure but I am waiting for answers from
the photographer/owner about other questions. She does take an
incredible amount of photos so I would guess they have been used and
clear many times.
>
> If the card is failing, I'd expect there to be something in
> /var/log/messages.
Nothing shows in /var/log/messages
> For that matter, even sysutils/smartmontools
> might work on these.
[root at dell64] ~# smartctl /dev/da1
smartctl 5.42 2011-10-20 r3458 [FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen,
http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net
/dev/da1: Unknown USB bridge [0x0644:0x0200 (0x400)]
Smartctl: please specify device type with the -d option.
>
[root at dell64] ~# smartctl -d scsi -a /dev/da1
smartctl 5.42 2011-10-20 r3458 [FreeBSD 8.2-STABLE amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen,
http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net
Vendor: TEAC
Product: USB HS-CF Card
Revision: 4.00
User Capacity: 30,965,760 bytes [30.9 MB]
Logical block size: 512 bytes
Device type: disk
Local Time is: Mon Nov 28 10:20:13 2011 PST
Device does not support SMART
Error Counter logging not supported
Device does not support Self Test logging
> > [robert at dell64] ~> fdisk /dev/da1
>
> Something I noticed when testing yesterday: fdisk results may not
> agree with gpart until the card has been reconnected. In particular
> fdisk showed the single FAT32 partition as the last instead of the
> first.
>
>
> Interesting that here the partition still exists, though.
>
> > [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)
>
> This didn't write anything (0+0 records). Should be
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/da1 bs=512 count=35
I was attempting to force another look at /dev/da1 to see any change
not actually zero out anything.
I did a lot of my testing in single user but switched to multi so that
I could more easily cut and paste tests and results. Her are the
results as root:
[root at dell64] ~# gpart create -s mbr da1
da1 created
[root at dell64] ~# gpart add -t "\!11" da1
da1s1 added
[root at dell64] ~# gpart show da1
=> 32 60448 da1 MBR (29M)
32 60448 1 fat32 (29M)
[root 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
At this point I removed the card and using a different external card
reader placed it in the WinXP system. Windows said the card was not
formatted and asked. I attempted to format but windows failed saying
the card could not be formatted.
I put it back in FreeBSD system and here is what I see.
[root at dell64] ~# gpart show da1
=> 32 60448 da1 MBR (29M)
32 60448 1 fat32 (29M)
[root at dell64] ~# mount_msdosfs /dev/da1s1 /mnt
mount_msdosfs: /dev/da1s1: Invalid argument
[root at dell64] ~# gpart show da1
=> 32 60448 da1 MBR (29M)
32 60448 1 fat32 (29M)
>
> > It acts like there is some sort of write protect on sector 1
>
> This is what made me think of a BIOS virus-protect mentioned above.
> Hopefully that's the problem.
>
> > or the cards are defective.
>
> It's worth contacting the manufacturer. Maybe they have a reset or
> reformat program. If you do get to the point of discarding the
> cards, I'd be interested in experimenting on them.
I will spend some time today or tomorrow on the manufacturer's chat.
If I do give it up and it is OK with the owner I will contact you
offline.
Thanks for you help.
Robert
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