Questions tagged [format]

Please do not use this tag. If your question is about disk formatting, use disk-formatting tag. If it is not about disk-formatting, use the relevant tag.

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4 answers
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Bulk converting images from one format to another?

I want to convert a batch of images, nearly 100, from jpg to png format. How can I do this without renaming them, but instead actually converting the format?
opu 웃's user avatar
  • 2,137
64 votes
7 answers
615k views

How to Fix "Read-only file system" error when I run something as sudo and try to make a folder/file?

When I try to save something or rename a file/folder it say this error " Read-only file system" or run something as root in the terminal it say this error sudo: unable to open /var/lib/sudo/"My User ...
MathCubes's user avatar
  • 5,666
27 votes
4 answers
106k views

How to zero out a drive?

I'm currently running Ubuntu 12.04 and want to completely format my laptop so I can install Windows 7 (replace Ubuntu). When I put in my bootable USB with the OS it just shows a black screen with a ...
Mohd Arafat Hossain's user avatar
24 votes
1 answer
120k views

Format external hard drive to ext4 in command line [duplicate]

How do you format an external hard drive to ext4 via the command line in ubuntu?
ss_millionaire's user avatar
22 votes
1 answer
165k views

how to format USB Flash Disk using Ubuntu terminal [duplicate]

I'm a total newbie in Linux specially Ubuntu, I'm just asking on how to format a USB using Ubuntu terminal. Hope you can help me thanks!
warrior's user avatar
  • 221
21 votes
2 answers
47k views

Can't format or delete partitions in pendrive because of GPT table error

This is what I got while trying to format a partition in my pendrive: Error deleting partition /dev/sdb1: Command-line parted --script "/dev/sdb" "rm 1"' exited with non-zero exit status 1: Warning:...
Harun Guna's user avatar
20 votes
6 answers
82k views

Can't format my usb drive. I have already tried with mkdosfs and gparted

I have a MicroSD card in a USB adapter (which plugs into a USB port on my machine, and acts like a USB flash drive). I was using Unetbootin to make this a bootable USB flash drive with Kubuntu. But I ...
Mauri Olivares's user avatar
19 votes
1 answer
12k views

Unknown ERROR from Startup Disk Creator

I don't understand this error from the Startup Disk Creator: org.freedesktop.DBus.Python.AttributeError: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/service.py", ...
Thufir's user avatar
  • 4,551
18 votes
3 answers
7k views

Why is there 4.86(maybe 15.1) GB of USED-space on a newly partitioned and formatted 298 GB drive (as ext4 by Gparted)

Well the question says most of it... Gparted reports the used space as 4.86 GB Nautilus reports used space as 15.1 GB...(via Properties of /media/U_0298_data) Why is this space used? and who is ...
Peter.O's user avatar
  • 24.6k
18 votes
3 answers
9k views

Reinstall Ubuntu with encrypted home directory?

I have Ubuntu 10.04 installed with encrypted home directory. /home is on a a separate partition. Can I just boot from a 10.10 CD, reformat / and install as usual? Should it work if I use the same ...
Andres's user avatar
  • 904
18 votes
5 answers
60k views

Is there any recovery software available for ext4?

Well, I have accidentally deleted my Ubuntu drive. I just want to recover all the contents of /home. Is there a way to do it? I referred to foremost, where I need to specify the extensions of files. ...
Amey Jah's user avatar
  • 2,685
17 votes
5 answers
65k views

wipefs device or resource busy

I am trying to format a drive using the Ubuntu Disks utility. When I select and try to format the drive I get Error wiping device. Command-line wipefs -a "/dev/sdb" exited with non-zero exit status ...
Steve's user avatar
  • 303
16 votes
4 answers
43k views

Ubuntu server 20.04 - time format 24 hours on shell with date command

I've installed Ubuntu server 20.04, and I can't find a way to display the time format to 24 hours when I use the command 'date' in the shell. I check the locale information with an Ubuntu server 18.04 ...
MadHorse's user avatar
  • 161
15 votes
5 answers
38k views

I can't format my live-USB pendrive (udisks-error-quark, 11)

I can't format my pendrive (where ubuntu was loaded as live-usb) . Whenever I do , they say . This partition cannot be modified because it contains a partition table; please reinitialize layout of ...
Tanmoy Sen Gupta's user avatar
15 votes
3 answers
116k views

Cannot format my SD card [duplicate]

I am new to Ubuntu, using 14.04 I am trying to format an SD card to make space on it, and it's not working. I tried in terminal: format mmcblk0 hformat mmcblk0 and it says: hformat: /home/michael/...
Michael's user avatar
  • 2,489
14 votes
2 answers
88k views

How to format a USB stick

My USB stick looks dead : victor@X301A1:~$ umount /dev/sdc1 victor@X301A1:~$ sudo mkfs -t vfat /dev/sdc1 mkfs.vfat 3.0.12 (29 Oct 2011) mkfs.vfat: unable to open /dev/sdc1: Read-only file system ...
Victor Lamoine's user avatar
14 votes
3 answers
48k views

How do I determine my drive's file format?

How do I find out what format my hard drive is in?
H2ONaCl's user avatar
  • 9,653
14 votes
1 answer
12k views

How to customize the font style in notify-send?

I am trying to change the format of text appearing in pop-up notification while using notify-send command. Here I saw that it can be done using HTML formatting. But that doesn't seem to be working for ...
Anonymous Platypus's user avatar
13 votes
4 answers
95k views

How to format Ubuntu bootable USB?

I am new in Ubuntu. First I installed Ubuntu 12.10 on my USB stick which is of 16 GB. So, it installed with 2 partitions of 9 GB and 7 GB. Now I want to format that USB. But when I try to format it, ...
Sohan Tirpude's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
15k views

What's the difference of partition type and filesystem type?

I'm formatting my Seagate Freeagent external HDD in Linux to FAT filesystem, because it can't be done in Windows, but I'm wondering, what's the difference betweeen partition type and filesystem type? ...
PatrixCR's user avatar
  • 365
13 votes
4 answers
50k views

Sandisk USB not detected by Ubuntu 14.04 but detected by Windows 7

I have a SanDisk 16GB USB drive that is not being detected by Ubuntu 14.04 but is detected by Windows 7. lsusb detects it but sudo fdisk -l or blkid doesn't. Even GParted and Disks don't detect it. ...
Parto's user avatar
  • 15.3k
12 votes
2 answers
18k views

How can I set the date format to my country setting?

I am German, but I use only English software. Hence, I am also using English Ubuntu. It's not because I don't know how to install German Ubuntu. It's because I prefer to work with English software ...
Jamina Meissner's user avatar
11 votes
7 answers
14k views

Thunderbird date format?

I have ubuntu 10.04 running Thunderbird 14.0 How do I change the date format to international standard? (eg; 2012-07-26) My system date already shows this format.
James's user avatar
  • 111
11 votes
1 answer
16k views

Analogue of Ubuntu's Disks in Xubuntu?

I just switched from Ubuntu to Xubuntu. I'm just trying to format a USB drive, but I don't find the Disks utility which I used on Ubuntu. Do I need to install something in Xubuntu in order to format ...
a06e's user avatar
  • 13.1k
10 votes
4 answers
23k views

How to reformat a drive with NTFS?

I currently have a corrupted NTFS external drive that I want to re-format in a format that can be read by Linux and Windows - suggestions? I want to reformat my 1TB NTFS drive to a format that can be ...
Alex Poulos's user avatar
  • 1,544
10 votes
2 answers
45k views

Possible to format/create partitions with Clonezilla?

I am wondering if its possible to create/format/resize partitions with clonezilla?
JM at Work's user avatar
  • 1,955
9 votes
4 answers
5k views

Format usb and confirm all zeros

I want to format my usb drive and confirm that it has been filled with all zeros. For formatting this is the command I am using: sudo mkfs.vfat -I /dev/sdb How do I confirm the device is filled with ...
homeGrown's user avatar
  • 103
9 votes
5 answers
9k views

How to know when formatting disk has finsihed - Ubuntu 16.04?

I have external hard drive which is 300GB. I set it to format to NTFS. Well there wasn't FAT32 in the list, though I know on Windows it asks me to set FAT32 because it has large capacity. It started ...
Vlad's user avatar
  • 219
9 votes
2 answers
2k views

Swap vanished after reboot

I have installed Kubuntu 14.04 with an encrypted home directory. Although I had swap set up during the install, the swap space was not there after installing. This has happened to many people, there ...
fifaltra's user avatar
  • 363
8 votes
6 answers
179k views

Low level format of hard drive

Can somebody please tell me how can I format a hard drive at a low enough level that the boot sector is re-written? I guess the equivalent of fdisk /mbr.
user129751's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
7k views

ICO or PNG Format?

Kind of a dumb question, but which file format are ubuntu icons (in apps and dash to dock) are they .png or .ico files? I want to create some icon/themes for ubuntu. But I'm not sure which format to ...
Ysela Creyo's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
25k views

How to format a FAT32 USB as EXT4

I have a USB device /dev/sda1 and I want to format it as ext4. I have tried sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1 It gives warning, goes ahead and completes formatting without error. But when I check it using ...
Ahmed's user avatar
  • 921
7 votes
2 answers
21k views

Usb boot device totally unable to be formatted

I'm really upset by now, I've been trying 2hours straight to format a stupid usb drive (I'm new to ubuntu and I don't know if I will last long at this rate) Basically this was the lubuntu boot usb ...
fuqda's user avatar
  • 71
7 votes
1 answer
25k views

lsblk not listing USB stick

I already crashed a USB stick couple of month ago, this time it's a little more expensive, so I would like to repair it (last time I removed it without having savely removed, this time I have no idea ...
manu at Kubuntu's user avatar
6 votes
5 answers
3k views

How do I identify the partitions of my hard drive in order to then shred them all?

I need to safely format my hardrive. I booted from a usb key and I am planning to run the following command on the whole hard drive: sudo shred -v -n3 -z /dev/the-partition My question is: how do I ...
nourdine's user avatar
  • 225
6 votes
4 answers
9k views

How to consult FAT32 cluster size on Ubuntu

I have to format an SD Card to FAT32 using 64 KB cluster size specifically. This is possible using mkdosfs, using command -s 128. It seems to work as intended, it follows all online helps which are ...
Cyan's user avatar
  • 274
6 votes
1 answer
16k views

Unplugged USB stick while formatting - now not recognized any more [duplicate]

I was formatting my USB memory stick using Ubuntu and chose "Override existing data". I accidentally knocked the memory stick out of the USB port. When I put it back into my Ubuntu computer it was ...
Josh's user avatar
  • 71
6 votes
3 answers
15k views

Formatting Hard Drives Takes Ages

I am formatting my hard drive using the "disks" utility. I selected my 3TB hard drive and chose the option not to partition it, but do a complete full erase (i.e. not the quick-erase option). It ...
john smith's user avatar
  • 3,013
6 votes
1 answer
32k views

formatting a drive to FAT32 with mkdosfs, need some info

I'd like to know how I can specify the cluster size when using mkdosfs /dev/sdx -F 32. I read somewhere that if you want to format it with a 32kb cluster size, this is the command: mkdosfs /dev/sdx -...
Hairo's user avatar
  • 327
6 votes
1 answer
18k views

Boot message about disk clean: Can it indicate bad disk?

Every time during the boot, the following message throws the splash screen away for a while and comes up: /dev/sda2: clean 185146/6553600 files, 1331445/26214400 blocks Since this is a old drive, ...
Yaksha's user avatar
  • 1,740
6 votes
1 answer
34k views

How to wipe up all partitions on disk and do a clean install of Ubuntu [duplicate]

Sorry if it's an obvious question, but here's the deal: I have a notebook with dual boot (Ubuntu 12.04 + Win7) and an extra NTFS partition for general storage. I want to wipe out all of it and do a ...
Victor's user avatar
  • 101
6 votes
1 answer
11k views

Recover ext4 file system after quick format

I accidentally formatted one of my drives and I'm hoping that I can recover a major part of my file system as I 'only' did a quick format. After installing a second identical hard drive, I quick ...
Max's user avatar
  • 101
6 votes
2 answers
27k views

How do I fix this hard drive?

I recently bought a 2TB WD Black hard drive and installed it in an enclosure to use as media storage for my Micca Spect media player. The installation went well and I booted into Ubuntu (14.04 LTS ...
jdiah's user avatar
  • 63
6 votes
5 answers
27k views

Is there a way to restore/format an iPod under Linux?

I have an iPod Classic, and it's full of duplicates and it's a complete mess and would like to start anew, and I was curious if there was a way to restore an iPod like you could under Windows/Mac?
Grayson's user avatar
  • 650
6 votes
1 answer
6k views

Copying root partition and /home to a new larger hard drive

I am getting a larger hard drive and would like to copy root directory to it. The partition for root is 20G. I would like to make it larger on the new drive. I also would like to copy /home to a ...
Timothy's user avatar
  • 348
5 votes
3 answers
1k views

Should you format your disk running Ubuntu? [closed]

Back in the days on Windows, I used to format my disk used with Windows once a year or so. Would you recommend the same for Ubuntu?
Ziyad Mestour's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
3k views

Why unmount a partition before overwriting the disk?

How to create a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive from terminal? Why do guys here use umount first? I assume USB flash drive should be formatted first, so does umount format the disk, or just detach ...
mk1024's user avatar
  • 669
5 votes
3 answers
61k views

Format a USB stick completely

How can I delete all data that is on stick? For example I have this problem: My stick has two partitions A (3.7 GB) and B (330 MB). How can I merge the two partitions in one and to delete all data ...
Ionică Bizău's user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
2k views

Retrieve file of a deleted partition

A hard-drive with four partitions Ubuntu Swap Data Free was accidentally formated and then partitioned in the same way with the same partition sizes again. I am looking for a way to retrieve a ...
Woltan's user avatar
  • 349
5 votes
2 answers
34k views

Why doesn't Gparted show my USB stick?

I have a new 16 GB kingston flash pen that I cannot format Gparted doesn't seem to see it It has some windows exe and files on it In do not have the format option as described here for Nautilus, ...
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