I've been creating a live USB to test out Ubuntu, but I'm facing an issue where a significant portion of the USB drive appears to be encrypted. I started with a 64 GB USB, formatted it using Windows to ensure it was empty, and then used Balena Etcher (I also tried Rufus) to write the Ubuntu ISO to the USB and make it bootable. While I can successfully boot into the USB and try out Ubuntu, I can't access most of the USB because it shows up as encrypted. After reformatting the drive in Windows, I regain access to the entire 64GB. However, when I create the live USB again and boot into Ubuntu, that same portion still appears as encrypted. Does anyone have an idea of what might be going on?
4 Answers
When you create the live USB, it adjusts the filesystem and typically just allocates space up to the size of the ISO. This means the remaining space might show as unallocated, which the OS won’t recognize. Try running GParted while booted into the LiveUSB, and you should be able to see that unallocated space and manage it from there.
Have you considered using Ventoy? It's great because it reconfigures the USB, allowing you to easily slap different ISOs on it without the hassle of formatting each time.
You might want to try formatting your USB to FAT32 before creating the live USB. After that, instead of just using Etcher or Rufus, consider extracting the ISO directly to the USB drive with 7zip or WinRAR. It sometimes helps avoid those weird encryption issues.
There's a chance your flash drive could be a scam version that's pretending to be 64GB. These drives often come from no-name manufacturers and might actually only be 16GB or 32GB, with firmware making it look like a larger capacity. If the part you can't access is around that size, that could explain it!
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