Cannot format memory stick to fat32

Question

I am trying to format my usb stick on /dev/sdc, partition sdc1:

sudo mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdc1

I get the following for a few seconds, no error:

mkfs.fat 3.0.26 (2014-03-07)

However, sudo fdisk -l lists /dev/sdc1 as 'Linux':

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1            2048   122879999    61438976   83  Linux

and I still can't mount it on a FAT32-only system.

I have tried to zero the stick first, sfdisk, removing -F 32, nothing works.

How do I format my USB stick?

Edit: I tried to format from nautilus. It doesn't work either, but at least I get an error message:

"Error synchronizing after initial wipe: Timed out waiting for object (udisks-error-quark, 0)"

Is the stick writeable (some have a little switch on them to write-lock)? — ubfan1, Jun 29, 2015 at 17:00
Good point! I see no physical switch, but when I mount the stick, it is root:root with permissions 0755... — Gauthier, Jun 30, 2015 at 7:59
@ubfan1: If I mount the disk with sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /media/usbdrive/ -o umask=000, I can create a file at the mount point. — Gauthier, Jun 30, 2015 at 8:18

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-13 12:24:37Z

2

Apparently, this is a bug, but gparted manages to format.

Strange that I get an error message when trying to format from nautilus, but not from the command line.

CommunityBot

1

answered Jun 30, 2015 at 13:23

Gauthier

2,6973 gold badges29 silver badges38 bronze badges

Add a comment |

1 Answer 1