[plug] Formatting a USB Flash Disk in Linux

[Steve Grasso]

OK, I'll bite. (but not hard!)
Happy New Year BTW!

On Thu, 1 Jan 2004 21:06, Ady Gould wrote:
> Ok gentlemen and ladies
>
> I have been asked how to do some things with a Flash Disk...
>
> 1.	unmount a flash disk

Assuming it's mounted as in 3. below:

umount /dev/sda1

> 2.	format a flash disk to vFAT or such

mkfs -t vfat -v /dev/sda1
NOTE: This assumes that the device is not mounted - you can't format a 
mounted device.

> 3.	mount the flash disk to read/write with the FAT FS

mkdir /mnt/flash
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/flash

NOTES:

1. Perform 1, 2 or 3 as the root or superuser
2. Flash drives identify on a few of my Red Hat systems (2.4.7-10 and 
2.4.20-24.9 kernels) as SCSI devices
3. If the drive mounts readonly, move the write-protect switch to unlock (key 
symbol, as opposed to the closed lock symbol or something similar)

> The lady in question, Margo, can mount her partner's Flash disk without a
> problem in (Red Hat) Fedora, yet her disk will not.
>
> As she said to me online: "when I plug it in, fedora inserts the correct
> line in the fstab to mount the disk with auto to pick up the fs"
>
> Make of Flash Disks: a-data
> Flash disk that works is: 32mg usb1.0 - never formatted
> Flash disk that will not: a new 256mg usb2.0 - formatted in XP to FAT /
> FAT32 with and without the utilities for the drive

Try formatting the drive under Linux

> Can anyone help me with this one - I'm lost anyhow :)

Hopefully I've helped a little

>
>
> I've CC-ed Margo this question so if you reply can you send to her as well?

Just did!

Cheers,
Steve

> Thanks
>
> Ady
>
> Ady "KiltOtter" Gould
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