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Remove EFI partition from thumb drive



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 10th 18, 12:49 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Jason
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Posts: 242
Default Remove EFI partition from thumb drive

I cannot seem to do this through Disk Management or with diskpart.
How to do?

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  #2  
Old June 10th 18, 02:05 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Remove EFI partition from thumb drive

Jason wrote:
I cannot seem to do this through Disk Management or with diskpart.
How to do?


There's some "Fun with DiskPart" here.

http://www.winability.com/delete-pro...isk-partition/

But note that in some cases, the EFI-ness of the disk
setup can still come back to haunt you.

If the "clean" command doesn't seem to remove all
evidence of the previous GPT/EFI setup, you may
need to use "clean all". The "clean all" option
erases every sector. This isn't recommended with
USB flash sticks, unless you really can't avoid it.
Doing "Clean all" to hard drives, isn't a big deal.
It just takes time.

So while the above is how I'd go about it, you
also have to be ready in case "Plan B" appears
on your radar. There are some utilities that
can still sniff the previous setup, and they may
be quite insistent you put the old setup back.
And for those, that's why there is a "clean all"
as a last resort.

Paul
  #3  
Old June 10th 18, 04:29 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Jason
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 242
Default Remove EFI partition from thumb drive

In article , lid says...
And for those, that's why there is a "clean all"
as a last resort.


Thanks!
  #4  
Old June 10th 18, 02:51 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Jason
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 242
Default Remove EFI partition from thumb drive

In article , lid says...

Jason wrote:
I cannot seem to do this through Disk Management or with diskpart.
How to do?


There's some "Fun with DiskPart" here.

http://www.winability.com/delete-pro...isk-partition/

But note that in some cases, the EFI-ness of the disk
setup can still come back to haunt you.

If the "clean" command doesn't seem to remove all
evidence of the previous GPT/EFI setup, you may
need to use "clean all". The "clean all" option
erases every sector. This isn't recommended with
USB flash sticks, unless you really can't avoid it.
Doing "Clean all" to hard drives, isn't a big deal.
It just takes time.

So while the above is how I'd go about it, you
also have to be ready in case "Plan B" appears
on your radar. There are some utilities that
can still sniff the previous setup, and they may
be quite insistent you put the old setup back.
And for those, that's why there is a "clean all"
as a last resort.

Paul


hmm... "diskpart list disk" shows just what I'd expect, but "list
volume" does not - the thumb drive doesn't show up like it does with
"list disk". If I "select disk 2" (the drive as list disk shows) that
succeeds, but then if I try to format it it reports "no volume
selected".
  #5  
Old June 10th 18, 10:54 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Remove EFI partition from thumb drive

Jason wrote:
In article , lid says...
Jason wrote:
I cannot seem to do this through Disk Management or with diskpart.
How to do?

There's some "Fun with DiskPart" here.

http://www.winability.com/delete-pro...isk-partition/

But note that in some cases, the EFI-ness of the disk
setup can still come back to haunt you.

If the "clean" command doesn't seem to remove all
evidence of the previous GPT/EFI setup, you may
need to use "clean all". The "clean all" option
erases every sector. This isn't recommended with
USB flash sticks, unless you really can't avoid it.
Doing "Clean all" to hard drives, isn't a big deal.
It just takes time.

So while the above is how I'd go about it, you
also have to be ready in case "Plan B" appears
on your radar. There are some utilities that
can still sniff the previous setup, and they may
be quite insistent you put the old setup back.
And for those, that's why there is a "clean all"
as a last resort.

Paul


hmm... "diskpart list disk" shows just what I'd expect, but "list
volume" does not - the thumb drive doesn't show up like it does with
"list disk". If I "select disk 2" (the drive as list disk shows) that
succeeds, but then if I try to format it it reports "no volume
selected".


You can

list disk
select disk 2
list partition
select partition 4
detail partition === gives details of partition 4
format ? === since a partition is selected, formatting
should be possible

The idea is, to use enough "selectors", to select
a thing requiring an action.

If a drive has nothing on it, absolutely nothing,
then first you'd have to write a signature (i.e. define
an MBR or whatever). Next you'd define a partition
and so on. If a thing doesn't exist, there should
be a command to create it.

The help menu is very helpful. If I type

help

it will show me all the top level commands.

If I type

select

it will tell me all the options that select takes,
such as disk or partition.

If I were to type

format

I would expect to see some options as to what
comes next. Obviously there needs to be a selector
for FAT32, NTFS, REFS, ExFAT.

Some of the options are pretty sell hidden, such
as vdisk. Diskpart has some limited support for
working with VHD files.

What the above is trying to indicate, is the
modus operandi. You use sufficient "select" commands
to identify something for an action. And then carry
it out.

A "volume" might well be something like RAID array,
a composite thing slightly higher in the stack
than a regular drive. I don't run into a need for
"volume" all that often so can't say more about it.

I don't do RAID here on purpose. I only do the
occasional experiment, with dynamic disk, hardware
RAID, or Storage Spaces. Generally one experiment
is enough to cure me of doing further work :-)

Paul
  #7  
Old June 11th 18, 02:52 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Remove EFI partition from thumb drive

Jason wrote:
In article ,
lid says...
list partition
select partition 4
detail partition === gives details of partition 4
format ? === since a partition is selected, formatting
should be possible


select disk 2 worked, but list partition showed partitions
on the OTHER drives. format also reported it couldn't work
on removable drives.

but.. "select disk 2"
followed by "clean" worked fine.

Then I could use plain old format to finish.


Windows has limitations on how many partitions
it will mount on USB storage.

USB storage could have a status of removable or nonremovable.
As signified by the RMB bit.

One of those two, only allows a single partition to be mounted.
And could cause problems when working with a USB stick.

USB sticks have been made, with *both* possible values of
RMB in hardware. Earlier sticks were always marked as
removable. Some higher capacity modern ones, indicated
fixed media, in an attempt to improve the functions
they offer.

There's a backgrounder here on USB sticks.

https://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbstick_e.html

And at the bottom of this page, a tool for reviewing
config space info coming from a USB device.

https://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbtreeview_e.html

Linux treats the sticks as if they were hard
drives, and they can be partitioned "normally".
That means it is possible to prepare a stick
on Linux, which won't mount completely on Windows.

Paul
  #8  
Old June 11th 18, 03:59 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Jason
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 144
Default Remove EFI partition from thumb drive

In article ,
lid says...
You use sufficient "select" commands
to identify something for an action. And then carry
it out.


I figured that out finally,but as I said, it wouldn't let
me format.
  #9  
Old June 11th 18, 04:23 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Remove EFI partition from thumb drive

Jason wrote:
In article ,
lid says...
You use sufficient "select" commands
to identify something for an action. And then carry
it out.


I figured that out finally,but as I said, it wouldn't let
me format.


I think a flash stick can also support a couple of options.
It's been a while since I experimented with this.

+-----+----------------+
| MBR | NTFS partition |
+-----+----------------+
^
|
+------ First sector has an "NTFS" text string in it
and is the file system header

You can put a partition on the USB stick "raw"
and it will be recognized.

+----------------+
| NTFS partition |
+----------------+

The header would contain information about the size of
the "container", and the "container" fits inside the
dimensions of the outside box. Since only one
partition exists in this case, there is no need to know
anything about the "box". But the number of clusters is
declared in the "container" portion, and that's all you
need to know in this case. This is also the reason
Linux does partition size changes in two steps - the box
outside is modified as one step, the "container" declaration
of clusters inside is done in a second step. Even in Windows,
it's possible to foul this up, miss the "box" size change step,
and end up with a 2TB "box" with a 1TB "container" inside it,
and a whole terabyte of wasted space at the end. It's a bitch
to fix that too.

What doesn't work in Windows, is something like this.
The second partition won't mount, and you can't write
to it like that.

+-----+----------------+----------------+
| MBR | NTFS partition | NTFS partition |
+-----+----------------+----------------+
mounts won't mount

Whereas Linux would work with it.

HTH,
Paul
 




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