OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Applications => Topic started by: David Graser on March 27, 2018, 10:05:08 pm

Title: eco essentials
Post by: David Graser on March 27, 2018, 10:05:08 pm
I have trouble formattitng every one of the new USB drives I have recently bought.   I could not get  could them formatted.

I then found eCo Essentials with its USB stick format utility.  This  program works great.  It makes it easy to format an USB drive.  Essentials also comes with some other utilities.  These other utilities  look for the "PCI.exe" where it would be located on eComstation.  To make them work,  I just make the directories to where it expects to fine the files.  I then copied the

sys\install\detect\pci.exe

and other files to the

to the newly created directories

ecs\install\detetei

These now work great.  This utility was well worth my $20 dollars.  I can't thank the developers enough and am well pleased.  My usb drives were useless with ArcaOS until I found this jewel.

Davis
Title: Re: eco essentials
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 28, 2018, 12:05:49 am
Hi David.

I haven't used that application. I used DFSee to format some FAT32 flash drives.

Maybe some new chapter can be included on this article:
https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Prepare_the_FAT32_USB_Flash_Drive (https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Prepare_the_FAT32_USB_Flash_Drive)

Any other ways to format USB drives are also welcome :)

Regards
Title: Re: eco essentials
Post by: David Graser on March 28, 2018, 12:51:17 am
Hi David.

I haven't used that application. I used DFSee to format some FAT32 flash drives.

Maybe some new chapter can be included on this article:
https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Prepare_the_FAT32_USB_Flash_Drive (https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Prepare_the_FAT32_USB_Flash_Drive)

Any other ways to format USB drives are also welcome :)

Regards

I have tried DFSee and Windows.  Under Windows, the drive was also wanting to install encription software.   DFSee is not that intuitive,  Look at how easy the interface looks for the USB format utility in Essentials and it works.

Used FAT32.IFS version 0.10 r338.
Title: Re: eco essentials
Post by: Andy Willis on March 28, 2018, 03:39:36 am
I generally just use the command line:
format x: /fs:fat32
pmformat also works for GUI.
Title: Re: eco essentials
Post by: David Graser on March 28, 2018, 04:59:48 pm
Andy,

These USB drives would not format fat32 under ArcaOS.  When formatted, the format would say complete, but when I would go to access these drives, the drives were not formatted.   This was with Fat32 beta 331.  I am now using FAT beta 336.

Under Windows, these drives would not format unless you gave the drives a security password and then the drives would format.  However, ArcaOS could not access the drives because the security software did not work under ArcaOS.

All I know is now I can now format these drives, the little  program works, and its easy.  My problem was only with USB removable drives, not internal hard drives.
Title: Re: eco essentials
Post by: Dano on March 28, 2018, 05:34:16 pm
Hi,
 I've been having USB thumb drive issues and was going to give reformat a try.
 When I try to start reformat I get the error:
 "[LVM4101] Unable to initialize the LVM engine."

  Can anyone hazard a guess as to what the problem might be?
Thanks,
Dan
Title: Re: eco essentials
Post by: Doug Bissett on March 28, 2018, 06:49:59 pm
If you are using the latest versions of the FAT32 driver, it will let you format a drive (HDD, or USB) directly, with no other software required.

You DO have to prepare the device properly (I will talk about USB now), and this is probably what your $20 bought you.

First, you probably want to save any files that may be on the stick, BEFORE you do anything else, so you can recover it, if you want to (use an operating system that knows how to read the stick, or use DFSEE to image it). Next use miniLVM (RMB on the Drives object, and select Manage volumes) to delete everything that is on the stick. It should say that it is all free. If this doesn't work, you probably need to use DFSEE, or the tool in ArcaOS, to wipe the front of the disk (might be a good idea anyway, to remove all traces of anything that OS/2 might not like). Important: EJECT the stick, and mount it again. Next, use miniLVM to create your partition(s) and add drive letters, if desired. Save, and close miniLVM. Now, you can format the partition(s) using the FORMAT command, or RMB on the drive icon, and select Format from the menu. To be sure that it works, EJECT the stick, and mount it again.

Older versions of the FAT32 driver cannot format, so you need to use the DFSEE tool to do it. You can also do it, by preparing the partition(s) as above, then boot to windows, and format it as FAT32.
Title: Re: eco essentials
Post by: Dano on March 30, 2018, 10:35:19 pm
So the solution that worked for me.
Boot Knoppix.
  wipefs --all /dev/sdX
  wipefs --all /dev/sdXY

gparted:
  Device>Partition Table MSDOS
  Partition>
     Primary.
     FAT32

Write everything out. Let Arcaos boot up from HD.
    minilvm - Set Drive Letter - Write.

Reboot.

After that, all 16gb was available. I guess something in ArcaOS REALLY doesn't like it if something on a USB device doesn't have what it's expecting.

Dan
Title: Re: eco essentials
Post by: Pete on March 30, 2018, 11:06:57 pm
Hi Dan

The answer is probably because your 16Gb usb stick had not been initialised for use so did not have LVM information on it.

With a new usb drive larger than 2Gb it is necessary to initialise the drive. I use DFSee - http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee/ - for the job.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: eco essentials
Post by: Dano on March 31, 2018, 05:34:02 am
To be fair, dfsee did see the drive and what was going on, it generally mimicked what one would expect from a fresh out of the wrapper kingston data traveller. aka.. FAT32.

I wasn't able much to figure dfsee out. I guess if I search there is a good video on youtube or a manual that will take me by the hand?

Thanks,
Dan
Title: Re: eco essentials
Post by: Pete on March 31, 2018, 05:31:17 pm
Hi Dan

You have to wade through the various included documents to work out how to use DFSee - unless you are Registered in which case you can always email Jan for support.


Regards

Pete