Solved USB Boot Drive Question

[Duckman1981]

Hello.

I've just finished making a couple boot disks out of flash drives, for the purpose of installing to a different PC to the one I'm using, and to have a backup drive. I followed the instructions given on the Linux Mint site, used balenaEtcher, etc. It all seemed to go well.

My question, out of curiosity, is about the capacity of the flash drive after it went through the process. It started as 64GB, but it now reads as a total capacity of 4.97MB. I was wondering if that's normal, and why it's done that?

Thanks.

In case anyone asks, I downloaded Mint 22.2 Cinnamon 64 bit.

 

[osprey]

Hello.


My question, out of curiosity, is about the capacity of the flash drive after it went through the process. It started as 64GB, but it now reads as a total capacity of 4.97MB. I was wondering if that's normal, and why it's done that?

Thanks.

In case anyone asks, I downloaded Mint 22.2 Cinnamon 64 bit.

When you write an .iso file like a Linux Mint installation .iso file to a usb, the .iso file is written as a raw disk image bit-by-bit at the start of the usb. One isn't copying files, rather one is writing a single .iso file bit-by-bit.That means it obliterates any partition table on the usb that would have included the metadata showing the original full size of the usb. Effectively, the part of the usb that is not written to becomes unallocated space.

Since the original partition table is overwritten by the .iso file, the .iso file itself becomes the only identifiable data on the usb, so its size is the one that is going to be output when some app wants to read the usb. So the answer to your question as to whether that small size read-out is normal, is yes.

It's possible to configure that unallocated space with a filesystem like fat32 or ext4 so that it can be used. One just works with formatting and partitioning tools that can give accurate byte offsets where the .iso file on the usb ends and the free space begins.

Otherwise, as is common here, once the usb .iso has been used and the usb is not needed any more for installing, the whole usb just gets reformatted, usually to a single partition of fat32 and then becomes reusable for any relevant purpose.

 

[Duckman1981]

When you write an .iso file like a Linux Mint installation .iso file to a usb, the .iso file is written as a raw disk image bit-by-bit at the start of the usb. One isn't copying files, rather one is writing a single .iso file bit-by-bit.That means it obliterates any partition table on the usb that would have included the metadata showing the original full size of the usb. Effectively, the part of the usb that is not written to becomes unallocated space.

Since the original partition table is overwritten by the .iso file, the .iso file itself becomes the only identifiable data on the usb, so its size is the one that is going to be output when some app wants to read the usb. So the answer to your question as to whether that small size read-out is normal, is yes.

It's possible to configure that unallocated space with a filesystem like fat32 or ext4 so that it can be used. One just works with formatting and partitioning tools that can give accurate byte offsets where the .iso file on the usb ends and the free space begins.

Otherwise, as is common here, once the usb .iso has been used and the usb is not needed any more for installing, the whole usb just gets reformatted, usually to a single partition of fat32 and then becomes reusable for any relevant purpose.

Cool, thanks. Makes sense now.

 

[bob466]

Welcome to the Forum.

When you burn a Distro's ISO to a Flash Drive...all the space is used...

Here is Mint Cinnamon 22.1 burnt to a 8GB Flash Drive...all the space is used but if you install Ventoy on a Flash Drive...you still have unused space...

This is my 32GB Ventoy Flash Drive...

As you can see I have 7 ISOs and room for more.
Hope this helps.