how to find partition name of usb drive

Question

I am trying to install Clonezilla to my usd drive . At the very last step I need to run

sudo makeboot.sh /dev/sdb

But I got this error information

"/dev/sdb" is not a valid partition name

but when I run sudo fdisk -l I got this information

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009b200

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048    60158297    30078125   83  Linux
/dev/sda2       616775678   625141759     4183041    5  Extended
Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda3        60160000   616773631   278306816   83  Linux
/dev/sda5       616775680   625141759     4183040   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 4089 MB, 4089446400 bytes
126 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1022 cylinders, total 7987200 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x69737369

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   ?  1869771365  2038460886    84344761   69  Unknown
/dev/sdb2   ?  1701519481  3571400945   934940732+  73  Unknown
/dev/sdb3   ?        2573        2573           0   74  Unknown
/dev/sdb4      2885681152  2885733566       26207+   0  Empty

So it looks like ths partition name for usd drive is /dev/sdb , something I am missing?

Thanks

Solution 1

/dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2, /dev/sdb3 etc are partition. /dev/sdb is the hardware device itself.

According to the manual, you should use /dev/sdbX, however there is no FAT32 partition on the device.

Here is an easy way to create a Live USB with Tuxboot

Solution 2

Partitions are usually the drive path followed by a number. With this information, we can establish that /dev/sdb is the drive, and not the partition.

The partitions available on your /dev/sdb drive are:

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   ?  1869771365  2038460886    84344761   69  Unknown
/dev/sdb2   ?  1701519481  3571400945   934940732+  73  Unknown
/dev/sdb3   ?        2573        2573           0   74  Unknown
/dev/sdb4      2885681152  2885733566       26207+   0  Empty

The partitions which are marked as Unknown are formatted in a partition table unknown to Ubuntu, you can solve this by formatting the partition table into a known filesystem type.

Comments

[mikewhatever]

The manual tells you how, alternatively, you can format the device as FAT32 with the graphical Disk Utility in Ubuntu.