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[blend]

Hi everyone

I've never been able to format a SD card or USB disk and then use it on the OLPC unless I formatted it in windows first.

I use the standard fdisk commands explained in teapots threads but every time unless I start the process with a windows xp format it fails.  Usually this isn't a problem but I've just got a 32 gig (I hope) sd card and the sd reader in the OLPC is the only way I have of easily formatting.  I've just installed ubuntu intrepid onto the sd card but ruined the package manager by installing Opera's alpha release.

Specifically what seems to go wrong is that the SD or USB never comes up in the journal again, I can still see it by typing df -k in terminal or mount | grep /dev but the installation never works.

Is anyone able to shed some light on things here?  I keep having to go around to my friends house and use their SD card reader every time I want to reinstall!

Perhaps someone could recommend a super easy gui for fdisk, although I've already tried one and it couldn't even detect it!

Any suggestions appreciated

[mavrothal]

Sugar (the journal) can only reed windows formatted USB/SD so you'll never see a linux (ext2,3,4) formatted card there. Through terminal though is OK (df)

fdisk can format cards fine provided that the card is not mounted. If you have a windows formatted card you MUST unmount from the journal before you use fdisk successfully or stop haldaemon BEFORE you insert the card as teapots instructions suggest.

If you want to format the card in a windows format with fdisk (FAT16, 32, VFAT) you can do it but for the generation of the windows file system you must (have and) use dosfstools, otherwise the card has no file system and is unusable.

finally if you want a GUI formatting tool you can install Gparted. However is too heavy for the XO...

[blend]

So a stock OLPC can't format a sd or usb card for use with sugar?  Incredible!

Thanks heaps for your reply but that still doesn't explain why I seem to have to always format with windows to get ubuntu installed.  It all seems to work until I reboot and then ubuntu fails to load up...  It seems the only time it ever works for me is when I initially format with windows and the little icon shows up in the journal.

[mavrothal]

So a stock OLPC can't format a sd or usb card for use with sugar?  Incredible!

Yes it can! With fdisk. You need to additionally install dosfstools ONLY if you want a windows file system

Thanks heaps for your reply but that still doesn't explain why I seem to have to always format with windows to get ubuntu installed.  It all seems to work until I reboot and then ubuntu fails to load up...  It seems the only time it ever works for me is when I initially format with windows and the little icon shows up in the journal.

Not if you follow the instructions EXACTLY as written! Look here for further troubleshooting (eg what people usually do wrong )

[atphalix]

install dosfstools and then:
to format as FAT16

Code:

mkfs.msdos /dev/sda

or

Code:

mkfs.vfat /dev/sda

for FAT32.