[GRLUG] weird USB problem

[John-Thomas Richards]

I have a USB stick that is 1GB.  I know it is one gigabyte; it has been
since I first got it.

I made it bootable with a Crunchbag ISO.  I no longer need it to be
bootable so I deleted the partition (via fdisk) and created a new
partition (/dev/sdb1) that utilizes the entire drive.  I formatted the
drive to vfat.  When I mount it via 'mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/usb'
I have full read/write capability.

However, when I first insert it into a USB slot, it automounts as
/dev/sdb, and—here's the kicker—the files are there (the very files that
were there before I deleted the partition and created a new primary
partition and then formatted the drive).  df shows the following:

/dev/sdb      765M  765M     0 100% /media/CrunchBang

Unmounting /dev/sdb and mounting /dev/sdb1 brings:

/dev/sdb1     962M  4.0K  962M 1% /media/usb0

How is this even possible?  Am I missing something obvious?  How can a
bunch of files still be there after deleting the partition, writing a
new partition that utilizes the entire drive, and reformatting that
partition?
-- 
john-thomas
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To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)