From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat May 2 22:17:07 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 1D3F86A9 for ; Sat, 2 May 2015 22:17:07 +0000 (UTC) Received: from fly.hiwaay.net (fly.hiwaay.net [216.180.54.1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D08D11D2D for ; Sat, 2 May 2015 22:17:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: from kabini1.local (rbn1-216-180-19-39.adsl.hiwaay.net [216.180.19.39]) (authenticated bits=0) by fly.hiwaay.net (8.13.8/8.13.8/fly) with ESMTP id t42MGwIx027190 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NO) for ; Sat, 2 May 2015 17:16:59 -0500 Message-ID: <55454CDA.3020209@hiwaay.net> Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 17:23:13 -0453 From: "William A. Mahaffey III" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.6.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 CC: "FreeBSD Questions !!!!" Subject: Re: How to restore a USB drive converted to bootable References: <5543FAA3.7050907@hiwaay.net> <441tiz3wrx.fsf@lowell-desk.lan> <5544DBA2.1030102@hiwaay.net> <20150502233854.c80bc5ae.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20150502233854.c80bc5ae.freebsd@edvax.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 02 May 2015 22:17:07 -0000 On 05/02/15 16:45, Polytropon wrote: > On Sat, 02 May 2015 09:20:09 -0453, William A. Mahaffey III wrote: >> On 05/02/15 09:06, Lowell Gilbert wrote: >>> "William A. Mahaffey III" writes: >>> >>>> I am about to do some OS installs (NetBSD & OpenBSD, as it happens) on >>>> boxen under construction. I would also like to use UBCD on a flash >>>> drive to memcheck those boxen prior to installation. If I prep a USB >>>> thumb drive as either a bootable UBCD drive or an over-the-WWW >>>> installer, I wipe out the drive for its original use. Is there a way >>>> to restore the drive back to its original functionality if I wanted to >>> Is "wipe the drive and reformat" what you need to hear, or do you have >>> more requirements that you haven't made clear? >>> >> >> Wipe & reformat, preferably from CLI under FBSD 9.3R-p13 for >> convenience, is what I'm after. Clearly creating a bootable UBCD or >> installer will wipe out whatever was >> there before, so I just want to get back to 'virgin' USB drive. > In that case, the command > > # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/da0 bs=1m count=1 > > should be fine. If there is any offending GPT metadata located > at the end of the USB drive, estimate the size and also erase > the last few MBs (use skip= to do so). There is no need to > actually zero out the _whole_ drive. *Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh*, I wasn't sure about that (zero the whole drive), thanks :-) .... -- William A. Mahaffey III ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "The M1 Garand is without doubt the finest implement of war ever devised by man." -- Gen. George S. Patton Jr.