Arch Linux

Carlwill

Member

From: Orlando, FL

Registered: 2008-10-06

Posts: 560

Website

Format a New USB Thumb Drive

I have a new USB thumb drive I just picked up and I was able to mount in to my Linux machine fine:

dmesg | grep -i "OCZ"
scsi 10:0:0:1: Direct-Access     OCZ      SD0StorageDevice 0.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
sd 10:0:0:0: [sdd] 15794176 512-byte logical blocks: (8.08 GB/7.53 GiB)

It mounts fine on my system:

[carlos@tuna ~]$ sudo mount /dev/sdd usb/
Password: 
[carlos@tuna ~]$ cd usb/
[carlos@tuna usb]$ ls -l
total 80
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 16384 Mar 30 10:12 cisco
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 16384 Apr 19 08:50 files
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 16384 Apr 23 15:46 mail
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 16384 Apr 23 15:49 pics

Now I would like to wipe and reformat the entire drive since I backed up the data. However before I reformat the drive, how can I set the label name into the format command while formatting as fat32? I don't need to use FDISK since I am not changing anything in regards to the partition table / chunk size. I just want to format as fat32 however I don't have mkfs.msdos or mkfs.fat32 on my Arch Linux system. I checked the Wiki and didn't find anything nor did any search thread results.

Anyone know what package I need to format fat32 & how I can set a label name so when it's mounted, I can see a specific name for the drive?

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hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: Format a New USB Thumb Drive

pacman -Qo /sbin/mkfs.vfat 
/sbin/mkfs.vfat is owned by dosfstools 3.0.9-1

should be "mkfs.vfat -F 32 -i  labe"l I think.

Carlwill

Member

From: Orlando, FL

Registered: 2008-10-06

Posts: 560

Website

Re: Format a New USB Thumb Drive

When I try to use the '-i' switch, I get the following:

[root@tuna ~]# mkfs.vfat -F 32 -i ocz_usb /dev/sdd1
mkfs.vfat 3.0.9 (31 Jan 2010)
Volume ID must be a hexadecimal number

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brisbin33

Member

From: boston, ma

Registered: 2008-07-24

Posts: 1,796

Website

Re: Format a New USB Thumb Drive

sudo mount /dev/sdd usb/

mkfs.vfat -F 32 -i ocz_usb /dev/sdd1

me spots some inconsistencies.  i'd bet if you used gparted instead, it'd warn you and say something like "create DOS Partition table first" or somesuch.

i dunno, this is the one area i like the wipe-my-ass-for-me bloat , could be worth a try.

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//github/

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: Format a New USB Thumb Drive

Label is -n, not -i. Also, if the stick has no partition ("superfloppy" format), you need to add -I. So the command would be

mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n some_label -I /dev/sdd

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: Format a New USB Thumb Drive

When I try to use the '-i' switch, I get the following:

Label is -n, not -i.

Ahmm, my bad. just check the manpage yourself next time someone states "should be XX I think"