Using DD to erase a flash drive
 

Flash memory commonly has 0xFF as the erased state of its memory bytes. I can use dd to erase to 0x00 thus: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX. How can I write all 0xFF characters to the device?

tbh i would use dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdX then format it.

Thanks for the urandom hint but I'd still like to know if there's a way to write 0xFF

You can use dc3dd (available in many distro's repositories) to write any pattern you want to a file. Assuming your flash drive is /dev/sdb:

Many thanks - just what I want

Instead of installing a new software for every task, you can also combine existing tools

Pretty sure there is a way to force an exact stream to a device with dd.