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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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The thing about USB sticks is that if you want to use them to transfer files |
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cross-platform (Windows & Mac as well as Linux) you have to use a common |
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filesystem. Typically, I use FAT32 for this since I don't think Windows |
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supports anything else that Linux and Mac can both deal with (NTFS support in |
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Linux is still unavailable on most machines) |
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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 options |
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related to FAT32 in there, but I *think* that that's the right one). Write to |
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the stick and exit fdisk. |
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Then when you're back at the prompt, run: |
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# mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1 |
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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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# mkfs.vfat -L "USB Stick" /dev/sda1 |
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I'm pretty sure spaces are ok there... If not, nuke the space ;-) |
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