[plug] usb storage howto

[Arie Hol]

On 2 Dec 2006 at 1:00, Gavin Chester wrote:

> Trying to work out how to put files on a SD card fitted into a mp3
> player.  I have never dealt with these things before and guessed that I
> had to format it first.  It's a 1GB card and I only have the mp3 player 
to
> put it in - no external card reader.
> 
> I found a howto that had this to say:
> "To format the drive in superfloppy format, you simply do: 
>  mkdosfs -I /dev/sda
> Formatting in harddisk requires more steps, if it's not already 
> formatted that way: 
>  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
> to erase the start of the USB Key. After that you can do a
> "fdisk /dev/sda" and create a new FAT partition (FAT16 is suitable)."
> 
> As well as that I vaguely remember (was it on this list?) talk that
> linux won't recognise a usb memory stick or other storage device unless
> its partitioned.  Does this apply to my device's card or can I use the
> superfloppy format?
> 
> I identified the card was /dev/sdc on my system, ran superfloppy 
> (seemed easiest), was able to mount the card and seemed to be able to
> write to it.  But when I unmounted and disconnected the player it
> complained that there were no files on the card.  A double-check showed
> that mkdosfs used fat32 - is this a problem?  I had an idea that maybe
> fat16 might be needed :-/
> 
> Can anyone suggest where I'm going wrong or point me to a howto?
> 

FAT16 will go to a maximum size of 2Gb - maximum of 65,525 clusters with 
a  size = 32,768 bytes

Multiplying the maximum number of clusters (65,525) by the maximum 
cluster size (32,768) equals 2 Gb. 

FAT32 will go to a maximum size of 4Gb - maximum of 65,525 clusters with 
a  size = 65,525 bytes

Multiplying the maximum number of clusters (65,525) by the maximum 
cluster size (65,525) equals 4 Gb. 

Although - FAT16 can become inefficient with files sizes greater than 
64Kb.


Regards Arie
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