A problem using "dd" on Cygwin

Angelo Graziosi angelo.graziosi@alice.it
Mon Mar 2 00:52:00 GMT 2015


Just an exercise...

I was playing with "dd" command to "install" an ISO image on an USB key 
(to make it bootable). The USB key has size 8 GiB and I did this (as 
Administrator):

   $ dd if=image.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

(image.iso has a size of 1.6 GiB). After this the USB key has a size 
(partition) of about 2.3 GiB: the remaining space is unallocated.

How to restore its original status?

Searching on-line, I have found that on a linux system I should run 
these commands:

1. To reset the USB:

   $ dd count=1 bs=512 if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb

(which seems to work)

2. To recreate the partitions table:

   $ cfdisk /dev/sdb              (???)
   $ mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sdb1
   $ dosfslabel /dev/sdb1 USB_STICK

but on Cygwin it seems that mkfs.vfat does not exist (in /usr/sbin I 
find cfdisk and other mkfs* files). Also dosfslabel does not exist, but 
if I understand, it gives a label to the USB, so it does not seem very 
important, now..

How can we proceed on Cygwin?


TIA,
  Angelo.

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