I do not have easy access to a Windows computer, I only use Kubuntu Linux on 4 of my 5 PCs, the 5th PC is an older PPC (G4) Mac running OSX 10.3.9.
I have owned this classic SanDisk device for a few years. It is the kind with the white slide buttom that has an orange light under the button. As I titled this posgt, it is a SanDisk Cruzer Micro.
I have used the device for several implementations where it hosted a live Linux distribution that I installed onto it.
After I use the live distribution for a while, I will simply repeated the installation of a different live distribution.
The installations of those live distributions fell to 2 methods: UNetBootin or dd.
I use the live distribution, then give up on the contents. Sometimes I reformat as FAT32, sometimes I install a different Live distribution.
As of now, I have since decided that I want to return the device to acting as a common flash drive. To attain this goal, I use various Linux built-in tools, based on Linux commandline mkfs.
I nearly always use mkfs.vfat -I -n 16GUSB /dev/sdwhatever. I have done the same this time as well (but have tested both with and without labels, the problem persists).
All efforts considered, I have tried creating and tried not creating partitions (used cfdisk and used fdisk), either way, my problem continues, unaffected by my efforts.
The problem I have goes like this:
I insert this 16Gb device into EVERY USB port on EVERY Linux PC;
the orange light blinks on/off for up to a minute (once needed about 10 minutes), never less than 20 seconds;
the blinking stops, the orange light changes to ‘standby’ indication - slowly brightening and dimming;
nothing displays in my KDE device manager;
I open a konsole in KDE, or switch to a console (control+alt+F1);
dmesg | tail shows the kernel saw the Micro as /dev/sd_
I execute sudo bash (typing a hundred sudo from a user command environment is tedious);
in the new bash environment, I am root until I logout;
I have performed several dozen efforts to make a viable FAT32 filesystem;
No matter how successful these efforts are, the 16Gb Micro is now never seen in KDE device manager.
When it was new, KDE device manager operated differently, but it recognized this device in a second or 2.
4 other SanDisk devices (including a 512Mb and a 2Gb Micro which are older than this 16Gb, including an 8Gb Blade which is newer than this 16Gb) all work as expected: insert, wait no more than 5 seconds and KDE device manager displays whatever device.
Sadly, the device filesystems are all named Sandisk something. Not enough information if you insert more than one SanDisk flash drive into a host PC. That is why I label the FAT32 filesystems on the SanDisk flash drives that I own.
I think this is where things have gone wrong.
When I recreate any FAT32 filesystem on this 16Gb device, I always try to add a filesystem label that helps me identify the device which I have inserted. For this 16Gb Micro, I have typically labeled the filesystem ‘16GBUSB’, the label is definitely within FAT32 naming limits of 11 characters for a label and no characters are illegal for label names. FWIW, the 2Gb Micro is presently labeled ‘2GBUSB’, and it works fine like this. This 16Gb Micro HAS worked correctly when labelled this way. But not now.
This 16Gb Micro takes too long to reach a state of ‘not recognized’ by KDE device manager.
After failing recognition in the KDE device manager, I open a console or a konsole, I can manually mount the 16Gb Micro, it works fine - read, write, create folders, delete files, everything.
Something in the filesystem label is bothering KDE device manager. I have deleted the label, reformatted the Micro as a partition, nothing corrects the device manager problem.
KDE assistance is not going anywhere at the moment.
So, have any Linux users seen this and fixed it?
