[clug] Getting rid of a partition on a USB drive (linux Digest, Vol 100, Issue 5, Message 2)

[Miles Goodhew]

Hi, John

> Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:23:17 +1000
> From: jhock <jhock at iinet.net.au>
> Message-ID: <1302214997.2678.7.camel at john-laptop>
>
> I have a 2GB USB drive. I stupidly put it into a M$ operating system and
> it now has two drives. I think one is for the annoyingly stupid waste
...

  Like others have no doubt pointed-out by now: It seems you have a U3
device (E.g. SanDisk Cruzer or similar). The second drive's not there
because Windows "infected it", but has been there from the start.
  The device's microcontroller presents two USB drives to the host: A
mass-storage device ("Flash drive") and a CD-Rom. As far as I can
tell, you still can't remove this directly from Linux.

  The (supported) Windows driver's here:

http://drivers1.sandisk.com/DriverDownload/assets/USB%20Flash%20Drives/launchpadremoval.zip

  They used to support McOs too, and the removal tool's available from
the Wayback machine here:

http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090323064059/http://mp3support.sandisk.com/downloads/cruzer-utility-mac.dmg

  It's a little annoying as you have to "install" the utilites to be
able to uninstall the U3 software. No idea if it works under current
McOs releases.

  Nevertheless, I highly recommend removing the U3 system as soon as
you get one of these drives.

M0les.

-- 
Miles Goodhew,
Executive Computer Scientist