Strange Partition Dimension

cagnulein · March 13, 2020, 8:04am

Hi everybody, i’m new here so please be nice

I’m using balenaEtcher for a long time and i think it’s a very great piece of code!

I’m facing a strange issue that i would like to discuss with you.

I’m burning the urbackup restore image ( https://hndl.urbackup.org/Restore/urbackup_restore_2.3.1.iso ): the burning process works well, and the image works fine too but in the Disk management in windows (also fdisk in linux) shows that the partition dimension is just 3MB! (consider that the image is at least 200MB).

Moreover, if i try to create a new partition in the spare space, windows and linux do that, but the usb pen drive will become unbootable: it seems that the operation of creating a new partition overwrites the first partition (maybe because the size is incorrect?)

I also discovered that the old urbackup images works fine (for example this https://hndl.urbackup.org/Restore/urbackup_restore_2.1.1.iso ).

Could you please point me to an idea to solve this issue?
I don’t think it’s a urbackup issue: the image works fine itself.

JSReds · March 13, 2020, 8:41am

Hey, we just flashed the same image you shared with us on an SD card. In our case we have obtained different results:

0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *31.9 GB    disk2
1:                       0x17                         247.4 MB   disk2s1
2:                 DOS_FAT_12 NO NAME                 30.6 MB    disk2s2

Given the different results, may I ask you to show us the powershell output of Get-Disk or Get-Disk | Where-Object -FilterScript {$_.Bustype -Eq "USB”}? would you also have the opportunity to try with another SD/USB in case the suggested command do not give us the expected result ?

cagnulein · March 13, 2020, 8:55am

@JSReds first of all thank you for answering me.

I guess you mean, Get-Partition, because Get-Disk gives me this result:

get-disk

Number Friendly Name Serial Number HealthStatus OperationalStatus Total Size Partition
Style

0 INTEL SSDS… BTLA82550EMF512K Healthy Online 476.94 GB GPT
1 Innodisk U… AA00000000000489 Healthy Online 30.22 GB MBR

Instead if i run Get-Partition

Get-Partition

DiskPath: \?\scsi#disk&ven_intel&prod_ssdsckkf512g8#4&68c9c9f&0&000200#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

PartitionNumber DriveLetter Offset Size Type

1 1048576 650 MB System
2 682622976 128 MB Reserved
3 C 816840704 475.2 GB Basic
4 511057068032 990 MB Recovery

DiskPath:
\?\usbstor#disk&ven_innodisk&prod_usb_drive_3me&rev_0917#20180717a67105500005&0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

PartitionNumber DriveLetter Offset Size Type

1 362496 2.78 MB Unknown

Ok, i’ve tried also with a different disk (16GB instead of the previous one that was a 32GB) but the result is the same:

Get-Partition

DiskPath: \?\scsi#disk&ven_intel&prod_ssdsckkf512g8#4&68c9c9f&0&000200#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

PartitionNumber DriveLetter Offset Size Type

1 1048576 650 MB System
2 682622976 128 MB Reserved
3 C 816840704 475.2 GB Basic
4 511057068032 990 MB Recovery

DiskPath: \?\usbstor#disk&ven_kingston&prod_datatraveler_2.0&rev_1.00#0019e02b7592a8c0cfff00ea&0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d
0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

PartitionNumber DriveLetter Offset Size Type

1 D 362496 2.78 MB Unknown

I’m running balenaEtcher 1.4.9 on Windows 10

JSReds · March 13, 2020, 10:01am

Hey,
yes I’m sorry I meant Get-Partition.
I did a test also on windows 10 with the latest version of etcher v1.5.79 and the result is the following:

DiskPath:
\\?\usbstor#disk&ven_ts-rdf5&prod_sd__transcend&rev_ts3a#000000000037&0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

PartitionNumber  DriveLetter Offset                                        Size Type
---------------  ----------- ------                                        ---- ----
1                H           32768                                    235.97 MB Unknown
2                            247463936                                 29.22 MB FAT12

Could you please try again by installing the latest version of etcher ?

cagnulein · March 13, 2020, 10:15am

@JSReds same even with the lastest version

could you please try with a USB mass storage instead of a SD card?

Thanks

JSReds · March 13, 2020, 11:12am

Hey, I did a test also with a USB and that’s the result:

DiskPath:
\\?\usbstor#disk&ven_sandisk&prod_cruzer_edge&rev_1.27#2005244383190d61469e&0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

PartitionNumber  DriveLetter Offset                                        Size Type
---------------  ----------- ------                                        ---- ----
1                H           32768                                    235.97 MB Unknown
2                I           247463936                                 29.22 MB FAT12

would you by chance have the option to output fdisk -l ?

cagnulein · March 13, 2020, 11:20am

fdisk seems fine

VirtualBox_2E000300 - Modula Copilot 10_13_03_2020_12_14_26

and if create a new partition from linux
[sorry i can put only image in a post because i’m a new user (forum limitations)]

cagnulein · March 13, 2020, 11:20am

VirtualBox_2E000300 - Modula Copilot 10_13_03_2020_12_17_11

windows show me right

cagnulein · March 13, 2020, 11:21am

Unbelievable. Do you have any explanations? I should allow my users to create a partition directly from windows

JSReds · March 13, 2020, 12:14pm

Hey, speaking with the Etcher team, we understood that I see the second partition since deamontools is installed on my PC. What you see is therefore normal, since it is an ISO image. The difference is that etcher copies your disk image to your USB drive and the first bytes of this disk image contain the partition table, while if you create a partition on linux, this partition table is updated or recreated, depends on how you do it.
For more information about it you can have a look here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/259446/how-to-understand-partition-table-on-hybrid-iso-image
I hope that I have been useful to you. Do not hesitate to contact us for any other doubts.

cagnulein · March 13, 2020, 12:38pm

Thanks @JSReds , so what do you suggest in order to create a new partition after burning the iso in Windows? Installing daemontools could help to achieve the result?

JSReds · March 13, 2020, 1:18pm

To create a partition you don’t need deamontools installed, you only need it if you want to have a correct view when you run the Get-Partition command.
To create a partition using windows you can use DiskPart tool, and to open it you can do the following:
Step 1. Press “Win + R” to open Run box, and input “cmd” in it and hit Enter to open Command Prompt.
Step 2. Type “disk part” and press Enter to open the Diskpart tool.

this is an exampe:

DISKPART> list disk

  N. disk  Status          Dimensions     Availability    Din  GPT
  --------  -------------  -------------  -------------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online            931 Gbytes         0 byte        *
  Disk 1    Online            238 Gbytes         0 byte        *
  Disk 2    Online             58 Gbytes      58 Gbytes

DISKPART> select Disk 2

Disk 2 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###   Type              Dim.     Offset
  ---------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Primary           235 Mb    32 Kb
  Partition 2    Primary            29 Mb   236 Mb

DISKPART> create partition primary size=100

Creation of the specified partition completed.

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###   Type              Dim.     Offset
  ---------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Primary           235 Mb    32 Kb
  Partition 2    Primary            29 Mb   236 Mb
* Partition 0    Primary             100 Mb   266 Mb

Others solutions can be found here:
https://www.diskpart.com/articles/create-bootable-partition-from-iso-1984.html

cagnulein · March 13, 2020, 1:41pm

with DiskPart i have always the same result:

DISKPART> select disk 1

Il disco attualmente selezionato è il disco 1.

DISKPART> list partition

Partizione ### Tipo Dim. Offset

Partizione 1 Sistema 2848 Kb 354 Kb

JSReds · March 13, 2020, 2:50pm

Hey,
in our opinion changing the partition table, the USB key would no longer boot. Unfortunately we can’t tell you for sure what makes those partitions been visible on my windows version. Having said that, unfortunately we cannot help you further on this point as it comes out of our skills.
I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you as I would.

I wish you a good weekend

cagnulein · March 18, 2020, 8:24am

Hi @JSReds, i solved it myself, let’s check here http://robertoviola.cloud/2020/03/18/add-a-data-partition-to-a-live-usb-iso/
Thanks again for you support!
Have a nice day!

JSReds · March 18, 2020, 10:19am

I’m glad you managed to solve the problem, thank you very much for sharing your research and solution to us.

Remaining at your disposal, I wish you a good day!

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