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On Thursday 08 October 2009, Daniel Quinn wrote: |
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> On October 7, 2009 10:30:23 pm Mick wrote: |
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> > What's the best way to reformat a USB stick? |
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> |
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> The thing about USB sticks is that if you want to use them to transfer |
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> files cross-platform (Windows & Mac as well as Linux) you have to use a |
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> common filesystem. Typically, I use FAT32 for this since I don't think |
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> Windows supports anything else that Linux and Mac can both deal with (NTFS |
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> support in Linux is still unavailable on most machines) |
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> |
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> So, if you're going to go with FAT32, you can use fdisk to partition your |
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> stick as usual, and mark it as type "b" (Win95 FAT32) (there's a few |
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> options related to FAT32 in there, but I *think* that that's the right |
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> one). Write to the stick and exit fdisk. |
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> |
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> Then when you're back at the prompt, run: |
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> |
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> # mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1 |
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> |
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> ...if sda is in fact your key. You can even add "-L LabelName" to attach a |
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> label to the stick: |
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> |
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> # mkfs.vfat -L "USB Stick" /dev/sda1 |
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> |
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> I'm pretty sure spaces are ok there... If not, nuke the space ;-) |
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|
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Thanks for this. |
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|
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I was thinking that mkdos -F 16 would restore the original, rather than a |
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different version. The stick will be used in MSWindows mainly. |
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-- |
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Regards, |
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Mick |