find USB in dev
 

When I plug in a USB, is there an easy way to identify it in the dev directory? I want to play with fdisk and I don't want to damage something.

In a terminal, use lsblk. That's the quickest way. You can also use fdisk -l or blkid as root, for more detailed information.

should make things pretty clear as to which device name the usb takes. It will give the label of the usb device as well if there is one, which there usually is, which may help to differentiate the usb device decisively.

that worked great thank you

Easiest is to look in /dev/disk/by-id. USB devices show up as /dev/disk/by-id/usb-xxxxxxxxx.

The file name is composed of the vendor/model/serial number of the device plugged in, and the file itself
is a symbolic link to the /dev/sd<whatever> that got assigned when it was plugged in.

Thank you