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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!

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  • It is not that easy for a niewbie. Why do not use GUI tools?
    – Pilot6
    Aug 18, 2015 at 13:14
  • 1
    If you make a mistake, you can format your HDD. There will be no warning.
    – Pilot6
    Aug 18, 2015 at 13:24
  • This question is NOT a duplicate (at least not the one marked). That one asks for a GUI, and this one for a command line solution...
    – Calimo
    Aug 19, 2015 at 10:06
  • @Calimo The other question has been broadened to include command-line solution, just the wording was never removed.
    – Seth
    Aug 20, 2015 at 1:33

1 Answer 1

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  • First, you have to find out which device (/dev/sd??) your USB stick is. Therefore look at the output of

    sudo fdisk -l
    
  • After that unmount the device/partition (if necessary) by running

    sudo umount /dev/sd??
    

    Make sure you replaced ?? with the correct device/partition name from the previous output.

  • To format The partition as FAT32 use

    sudo mkdosfs -F 32 -I /dev/sd??
    

    Again replace ?? with your respective letters.

Be careful that if you enter the wrong device name, you might also accidentally format your hard disk!

You can also do

    sudo -s

and you don't have to put "sudo" in front of everything!

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    Hi, after doing this I get a: Error while copying to XXXXX The destination is read-only. any clue?
    – vabada
    Sep 9, 2016 at 6:17
  • sudo chmod 777 /dev/sd??
    – madzohan
    Mar 25, 2017 at 16:54
  • Have a SCRIPT for the whole shebang would be nice (with some sanity checks, that it's a a) USB b) removable device c) no larger than 32 GB d) unrelated to the usual pack like /, /boot, etc. as an extra precaution)
    – Frank N
    Sep 16, 2017 at 12:27
  • If you want to name the volume while formatting, add -n YOUR-NAME to the mkdosfs command.
    – Zoltán
    Sep 14, 2018 at 14:34
  • I know it's been 4 years but @vabada you probably messed with the usb too much and it's broken
    – Nitwit
    May 13, 2020 at 11:57

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