[lug] Gparted doesn't recognize new USB drive

[D. Stimits]

...
> D. Stimits wrote:
> 
> > If you run "dmesg --follow", and watch for messages as you plug it in.
> > What shows up?
> 
> Same as before. But it's cool that I can use dmesg instead of journalctl.

Can you copy and paste what shows up?
> 
> > Sometimes you can use dd or similar to wipe things clean and prevent
> > things like protective MBRs from getting in the way. Then use gdisk or
> > similar to partition. After that apps like gparted work well.
> 
> Can you elaborate on "protective MBR"?

Old style BIOS partitions have a master boot record, or MBR. Then GPT came along. Old MBR software was dangerous to GPT partitions because it didn't know what GPT was. So GPT has the option to add a fake MBR which doesn't really do anything other than make old BIOS style software avoid damaging GPT schemes. If software is refusing to operate on the disk due to a protective MBR, then you could completely zero the disk (with dd from /dev/zero), and after that some of the more confused software will function again. But that depends on why things are failing, thus the question on what dmesg shows during USB insert.