Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Spaccafumo · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 27 Location: Sulmona - Italy

One (and only one) of my usb flash drivers, many times re-formatted after having hosted "Puppy on usb" opens in the desktop, beside its own icon, a second icon called "sr1".
See the picture n.1. Mounting "sr1" appears what in picture 2.
How to totally clean that usb-flash? Thanks.

puppyluvr · Posted: Sat 16 Feb 2013, 07:04 Post subject:

Hello,
Builtin OEM crap, prob on a separate partition..
Delete all the partitions with Gparted, create a new one, format as desired..

Karl Godt · Joined: 20 Jun 2010 Posts: 2682 Location: Kiel,Germany

It is a second partition and dd ed with firmware software
or a read-only separate chip.
Such sr[0-9]* device shows up for my USB modem since kernel 2.6.31 ,
maybe a usb_modeswitch or udev rule would be capable to hide this sr1 as it does the windows driver probably that came with that USB drive ,
probably this sr1 shows up in windows C:\ as CD drive first time to load the firmware from that likely iso9660 formatted chip
and after the driver installed to Windows, this driver is hiding automatically that chip on the USB drive, it came from.

Flash · Posted: Sat 30 Mar 2013, 08:43 Post subject:

I have used several external hard disk drives that had the same "feature." The "virtual CD" contains crapware, usually software for creating backups, for the clueless to install in Windows. The idea is that, since 'Autorun' is turned on by default in Windows, the virtual CD will initiate crapware installation as soon as you connect the external drive to a Windows machine. There's no way to get rid of the virtual drive, but since it doesn't appear to do any harm, at least in Linux, I ignore it.

starhawk · Posted: Sat 30 Mar 2013, 17:38 Post subject:

I believe I have a utility that removes that software. Predictably, it does not work in Linux.

I'll see if I can find one that does, and if not, I'll post a copy of the Windows only version, maybe you have a friend whose computer you can borrow...? Wink

starhawk · Posted: Sat 30 Mar 2013, 18:20 Post subject:

Here are two links to things that may work for you.

http://jimcooncat.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/attempting-to-remove-u3-from-linux/

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

I've lost my Windblows-exclusive copy of the uninstaller, but Softpedia still has it, here --> http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Uninstallers/U3-Launchpad-Removal-Tool.shtml

Another Windblows-only removal tool is here (click the link with the line through it, at the bottom of the article) --> http://www.geekyjock.com/pages/blog/2006/05/remove-u3-software-from-your-usb-flash.html

No guarantees that either one works in Wine. Probably they don't.

Flash · Posted: Sat 30 Mar 2013, 20:59 Post subject:

Starhawk, that information may be obsolete. I found this on the U3 Wikipedia page: