LinuxQuestions.org - format memory stick

- Linux - Newbie (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/)

- - format memory stick (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/format-memory-stick-619520/)

format memory stick

Dear All,
I want to format memory stick(pen drive).
So, what is the command ?
Suggestions needed.
Thanks in advance.
Regards.
Tapasi

Once you plugged your pen drive, make sure it is mounted or not.

use "fdisk -l" which will show the list of disk in your linux box.
Your USB may be there as a " sda/sdb/sdc/sdd" (either one). You can verify yourself with the size in MB .

The you need to mount it to a directory.
mkdir /ZAMO
mount /dev/sda1 /ZAMO (am considering my USB as sda)
cd ZAMO
ls
.....Verify your data is here. If ok continue
cd ..
mkdosfs /dev/sda1 (if you want a dos FS)
mke2fs -j /dev/sda1 (if you want ext3 FS)

All the best. This is for Fedora or redhat.

Do not mount the disk before formatting. Especially, do not have the disk mounted during the formatting.

Also, keep in mind that on newer kernels, many devices appear on /dev/sd*, so double-check which device you are formatting -- it would be bad to do that to your hard drive.

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tapasi (Post 3049897)

Dear All,
I want to format memory stick(pen drive).
So, what is the command ?
Suggestions needed.
Thanks in advance.
Regards.
Tapasi

You don't mount the flash to format/partition it.

You first would partition the device using 'fdisk /dev/sdx' (where x is the device a,b,c,d). Partition as you desire, make sure to select the partition type for the device partitions.

You can then run 'mkfs ' on the device (note the underlined portion);

Quote:

excerpt from 'man mkfs';
MKFS(8)

NAME
mkfs - build a Linux file system

SYNOPSIS
mkfs [ -V ] [ -t fstype ] [ fs-options ] filesys [ blocks ]

DESCRIPTION
mkfs is used to build a Linux file system on a device, usually a hard
disk partition. filesys is either the device name (e.g. /dev/hda1,
/dev/sdb2) or the mount point (e.g. /, /usr, /home) for the file sys-
tem. blocks is the number of blocks to be used for the file system.

The exit code returned by mkfs is 0 on success and 1 on failure.

In actuality, mkfs is simply a front-end for the various file system
builders (mkfs.fstype) available under Linux. The file system-specific
builder is searched for in a number of directories like perhaps /sbin,
/sbin/fs, /sbin/fs.d, /etc/fs, /etc (the precise list is defined at
compile time but at least contains /sbin and /sbin/fs), and finally in
the directories listed in the PATH enviroment variable. Please see the
file system-specific builder manual pages for further details.

You should 'man commands' when in question.