resize root partition to max available space SD card can provide

[pfeerick]

hi, the resize_rootfs.sh should have a path specified also;  however,  the resize_rootfs.sh may not work.

The SD card may be resized with gparted from another gnu+linux machine.

If you mean internally to the script - yes. If you mean as a parameter, then no. Otherwise both longlseeps and Lenney's instructions for the last six months are wrong, and the script isn't doing what it says it does! I don't think so! :-P You simply run resize_rootfs.sh without any special parameters or change directories needed - only sudo/root privileges else fdisk will fail. 

I think since you're saying you've only just written the debian image to a microSD, that either this could be an older image where resize_rootfs.sh was broken, or more likely either the microSD is faulty/fake or the partition table has been corrupted. You will get a better some idea of that if you run gparted or fdisk on another linux machine (you can live-boot linux if you don't have it installed on another box).