General TC > Tiny Core Netbooks
TC on Intel NUC
Rich:
Hi PDP-8
--- Quote from: PDP-8 on March 30, 2018, 06:47:19 AM --- ... BUT, when it comes to FAT32 formatting, they acknowledge that there are Linux based utilities that will do fat32, but state that small differences in formatting mean that they expect that if you have troubles, you need to do a FULL, and NOT a quick format in a windows box on the stick. ...
--- End quote ---
Could you please provide a link to the source of that information?
coreplayer2:
iirc, early (WinXP) formatting utilities did not write "Zeros" to the drive. However, since Windows Vista the formatting Utility does write "Zeros" to the drive. Writing Zero's to Flash storage effectively fills the drive (programs flash cells). I suspect Windows 10 and possibly 8.1 uses the test "Spindle speed = 0" to determine flash storage and disable bad sector test and the writing of damaging zeros, but since I can't remember exactly.. I'm sifting through the Microsoft info to determine this..
Additionally, the old HDD was formatted with sector geometry and most file system formatting utilities aligned accordingly. With Flash this is not the case and formatting with a 1MB offset will significantly improve performance.
AFAIK Gparted provides options to format without data erase and to align with MB offset of your size choice which is particularly useful when formatting raid arrays. 1MB offset is deemed satisfactory for most systems.
PDP-8:
Hi Rich - here's the link. About 3rd page, op: Pearson
https://communities.intel.com/thread/121952?start=30&tstart=0
But note that this is NOT an official statement, but seems to come from someone who has an inside connection. Official statements will be from messages containing something like "this message was posted on behalf of Intel Corporation". This guy does not have that header in his messages. This is what happens when you read forums on a phone browser. :)
coreplayer2: still interesting stuff and makes me think about redoing all my formatting on my own just to be sure.
I used to do the zero out trick with something like this before formatting and partitioning (where xx is your actual device):
--- Code: ---sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdxx count=50
--- End code ---
Maybe I'll remove the count=50 and allow dd to scribble to the entire thing.
From my recollection, the standard Windows fat32/vfat was this set of options:
--- Code: ---sudo mkdosfs /dev/sdxx -s 16 -F 32
--- End code ---
Wonder if that differs any from Gparted or even this:
--- Code: ---sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdxx
--- End code ---
I just might take the time to zero out my sticks, and reformat/partition just for the heck of it. making sure they are on 1mb offset...
coreplayer2:
--- Quote from: PDP-8 on March 31, 2018, 02:00:01 AM ---coreplayer2: still interesting stuff and makes me think about redoing all my formatting on my own just to be sure.
I used to do the zero out trick with something like this before formatting and partitioning (where xx is your actual device):
--- Code: ---sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdxx count=50
--- End code ---
Maybe I'll remove the count=50 and allow dd to scribble to the entire thing.
...
I just might take the time to zero out my sticks,
...
--- End quote ---
No!!! Please don't do that... My point was a FULL format from Windows utilities can actually be dangerous to a Flash drive and a reminder to NEVER EVER ZERO A FLASH BASED DRIVE of any kind
Zero'ing a Flash based drive effectively fills the drive, unlike an HDD Zero'ing a flash drive does not erase the drive
Zero'ing a Flash based drive has disastrous effects. At best the drive will be temporarily unusable, at least until an erase operation has been completed.
It's impossible to write random data to Flash memory. A Nand cell only understands a logical 0 or 1. Writing zero's to the drive will effectively fill the drive until no free cells are remaining, rendering the drive unable to accept further writes. The drive will remain in this unusable state until an erase operation is performed. See where I'm heading with this??
PDP-8:
Ah, write! er, right! :)
Luckily I haven't done anything yet. Still had my head in the spinning-rust mode there. Thanks for the heads up!
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