HOW TO FORMAT A PENDRIVE IN LINUX (For Beginners in Linux)

(This article is intended for Novices in Linux)

“Virus” is the most familiar word in General purpose computing today. Very often , there are more viruses than legitimate programs in a common user computer. Pendrives are the most common devices through which viruses propagate from one computer to another. Many a Times an infected pendrive can not be cured by formatting it in Windows.In such a scenario Linux can be used as an effective tool to get one's pendrive formatted. I am here explaining how you can get your pendrive formattted in Linux.



Step 1: First of all we have to identify the right label of the USB pendrive. To do this remove your Pendrive from computer if connected and go to /dev directory and sort the items in order of modifying date by right clicking and select Arrange Items -> By modifying date.

Step 2: Now insert the pendrive in the USB port. Now check the /dev directory. Those items that appearred in the last are related to the pendrive. One of them should be the label of your pendrive.

Step 3 : Now to identify the label you write down all the new items that appeared on inserting pendrive.

suppose the Items are sdb,sdb1, sge, etc etc . Now apply followin command-
# umount -t vfat /dev/sdb

and look for icon of the pendrive on your desktop. If it disappeared then sdb is the label of your pendrive. If it does not disappear then apply the above command for the next label that is sdb1 or sge and so on, until the icon of the pendrive disappears from desktop.

Suppose your search ends for sdb1.

Note 1: I am assumming that the filesystem of your pendrive is fat.

Note 2: Identification of the label is Very immportant. If you wrongly identify the label then whole of your hard disk can be formatted. So be careful.

Note 3: Each time you insert your pendrive Linux may assign it different label.





Step 4: Now apply following command -

# mkfs -t vfat /dev/sdb1



if it executes successfully then Your pendrive is formatted, if it does not then you must have identified the wrong label.



(There are other ways too, to do the same task. But above method is very easy to implement. Suggestions are always invited. Feel free to post any critical comment)