Formating flash drives

Gogul · 11-29-2005, 08:44 AM

I'm fairly new to Linux and I'm using Mandriva (aka Mandrake).

I haven't been able to work out how to format a Flash Drive

I've looked all the way through the configuration menu but the option doesn't seem to be available.

If it can be done from the shell then could someone please tell me how to do it?

fatrandy13 · 11-29-2005, 09:05 AM

(assuming the device is mounted on /mnt/sda1)
if you want to just completely erase it, try this:

cat /dev/null > /mnt/sda1

this will blank out all info on the device...if you want to actually format is, try using cfdisk, its a simple and self explanitory program used for partitioning disks

oneandoneis2 · 11-29-2005, 09:09 AM

After using cfdisk to partition the drive, you'll also need to use mkdosfat or mkfs.vfat or something like that to actually format the partition.

Gogul · 11-29-2005, 10:10 AM

Thanks guys, I'll give it a try.

You can see I'm new to it lol.