How to identify the flash sticks.

Jofto · 12-13-2022, 08:15 AM

I have 2 identical USB flash sticks. One has BionicPup32 on it as the bootble USB. The other one is empty. Both of them are inserted into USB ports. On BionicPyp32's desltop, there are 4 USB flash sticks, sda, sda1, sda2, and sdb1. When install the OS, how do I know which one is the bootable and which one is the empty one?

Thank you.

TenTenths · 12-13-2022, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jofto

On BionicPyp32's desltop, there are 4 USB flash sticks, sda, sda1, sda2, and sdb1.

sdb is most likely the blank one as sda is showing with two partitions, which would be unusual for a blank drive. Also having a device name of sda would strongly indicate this is the boot device.

aus9 · 12-13-2022, 07:22 PM

in addition to above, in future, you can also look at naming some sticks

eg for ext2 3 or 4 use root powers to add a label to those sticks
also works on internal drives so my fstab uses labels not UUIDs

Code:

man e2label

Code:

sudo e2label /dev/sda1
[sudo] password for me: 
s1

 cat /etc/fstab
LABEL=s1    /    ext4  defaults,noatime           0 1
LABEL=s4    /s4  ext4  users,rw                   0 2
LABEL=swap  swap swap  defaults                   0 3

Jofto · 12-13-2022, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TenTenths

sdb is most likely the blank one as sda is showing with two partitions, which would be unusual for a blank drive. Also having a device name of sda would strongly indicate this is the boot device.

Thank you.
I'll try to identify them by opening the one marked sda since sda indicates as the boot device.
Appreciate.

Jofto · 12-13-2022, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aus9

in addition to above, in future, you can also look at naming some sticks

eg for ext2 3 or 4 use root powers to add a label to those sticks
also works on internal drives so my fstab uses labels not UUIDs

Code:

man e2label

Code:

sudo e2label /dev/sda1
[sudo] password for me: 
s1

 cat /etc/fstab
LABEL=s1    /    ext4  defaults,noatime           0 1
LABEL=s4    /s4  ext4  users,rw                   0 2
LABEL=swap  swap swap  defaults                   0 3

Thank you.
Sorry, I do not know that much and unable to do what you advise.

rknichols · 12-13-2022, 11:03 PM

Running "lsblk -f" (as root) should give you a pretty good idea about what is on each stick.

Jofto · 12-14-2022, 01:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rknichols

Running "lsblk -f" (as root) should give you a pretty good idea about what is on each stick.

Thank you.
I am just starting to touch a Linux OS, realy do not know how to run anything. Sorry and appreciate your goodwill.