How to format a USB pendrive in Linux ?

Here some more recent RnD done on my end and it will help you to make out easily while you trying to do formating your usb in linux.

Type the following command to find out USB pen partition name:

[root@thiyag]# df
Filesystem     1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs          51606140  6148584  44933428  13% /
devtmpfs          953540        0    953540   0% /dev
tmpfs             961808     1000    960808   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs             961808    40612    921196   5% /run
/dev/sda3       51606140  6148584  44933428  13% /
tmpfs             961808    40612    921196   5% /run
tmpfs             961808        0    961808   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs             961808        0    961808   0% /media
/dev/sda5      251747076 83478108 155480900  35% /home
/dev/sda1         495844    78680    391564  17% /boot
/dev/sdb1        7898008        4   7898004   1% /media/2E3E-D0DE

We can use fdisk as well to get to know the USB partition,

[root@thiyag]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9c68a144

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048     1026047      512000   83  Linux
/dev/sda2         1026048     8759295     3866624   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3         8759296   113616895    52428800   83  Linux
/dev/sda4       113616896   625142447   255762776    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       113618944   625141759   255761408   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 8103 MB, 8103395328 bytes
196 heads, 32 sectors/track, 2523 cylinders, total 15826944 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          32    15826943     7913456    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Once identified the partition name type the following command to format the usb pen in Linux
(caution you must select correct usb partition name, otherwise you will loss all the data on hard disk)

[root@thiyag]# mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1
mkfs.vfat 3.0.12 (29 Oct 2011)
mkfs.vfat: /dev/sdb1 contains a mounted file system.

here we are getting an error as, “mkfs.vfat: /dev/sdb1 contains a mounted file system.”
So it asking us to unmount before we format the USB
here we go for unmount the mounted usb.

[root@thiyag]# umount /dev/sdb1

We havn’t get any error, so we unmounted it 😉

finally, use the following command to format your pendrive/usb drive.

# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1

To format as VFAT/FAT32 file system type the following command:

[root@thiyag]# mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1
mkfs.vfat 3.0.12 (29 Oct 2011)
[root@thiyag]#

hope it works for you too ! 🙂