Delete cdfs partition on clickfree USB hard drive

[goombawaho]

The drive has a small CDFS partitions that contains their software and it shows as a CD drive and the rest of the drive is for storage.

Anyone know of a definitive way to whack the CDFS partition and just make one big partition? Searching the interwebz doesn't seem to show a "here's how to do it" moment.

I tried regular disk management in XP - no dice
I tried Partition Magic - doesn't even see the drive
I tried Active Kill Disk - doesn't touch the CD drive
I tried some tools on the Ultimate Boot CD but they didn't see the USB hard drive.

 

[DrB0b]

Easeus Partition Master?

"You don't now what you got, till its gone..
80's hair band Cinderella or ode to data backups???

 

[goombawaho]

Okay - will take a look but it would be nice to know that something IS the silver bullet.

 

[goombawaho]

Easeus Partition Master doesn't even show the CDFS partition, it only shows the NTFS partition on the remainder of the disk.

Tried Ghost and was going to image a blank hard drive to the partition, but ghost didn't see the partition either.

Somebody's got to have done this with a bootable linux cd.

 

[DrB0b]

Can you no just zero out the whole drive with Partition Magic or Paragon?

"You don't now what you got, till its gone..
80's hair band Cinderella or ode to data backups???

 

[goombawaho]

No or I wouldn't have even posted this. Nothing can see the CDFS partition as something you can select and kill, delete, etc.

 

[tlcscousin]

http://u3-tool.sourceforge.net/

The above should remove that partition, it also has a link to drives supported for the removal.

http://u3.sandisk.com/launchpadremoval.htm

Will remove the launchpad.

 

[goombawaho]

The list does NOT contain my Clickfree drive AND I'm betting it doesn't work, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Seems like the U3 removal utility would totally not work with a non-U3 device.

 

[goombawaho]

Neither worked. U3-Tool at least launched but couldn't address (talk to) the device.

The other didn't even start.

Aren't there any cocky linux guys to come along and say "you've been using the wrong tool for the job" and tell me how to use a bootable linux cd to whack this partition???

 

[tlcscousin]

Old DOS fdisk would probably do it if you could get it to see a usb drive.

 

[BadBigBen]

haven't tried it myself, Goom, but what does GParted have to say about that drive, or have you also tried sfdisk, both should be contained on most Linux Live CDs...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[tlcscousin]

http://www.techzonez.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28716

The above post suggests its actually a chip on the drive that contains the clickfree partion information.

 

[goombawaho]

tlcscousing: that article just about says it all and it's also super recent.

I'll scope those ideas out and YES, I am starting to believe that it might be a memory stick type of chip inside the drive that holds the CDFS partition and thus might be untouchable.

That would make sense so that nobody could lose or destroy the backup software functionality of the drive.