+
+

Formatting a USB in Linux is easier then burning an ISO and only needs a few quick commands!

+
+

What you will need 📋

+
    +
  • A USB drive
    • +
  • A computer with Linux 🐧🖥
    • +
  • The ability to read instructions and to follow them 🧠
    • +
+
+

Formatting the USB

+
    +
  1. The first thing you want to do is plug in your USB stick and identify the USB stick's name.
    2. +
+

lsblk

+

Normally the USB will be something like sdX; a tip on identifying it is by looking at the size of the USB in the table that lsblk gives you!

+
+
    +
  1. Now you need to use a program called fdisk that will allow you to create a new partition table for the USB, this will format the USB.
    2. +
+

sudo fdisk /dev/sdX

+

You will need to press the following keys to make a new partition table for the USB.

+
    +
  • o - Creates a new DOS partition table
    • +
  • n - New partition, press enter to all that follows
    • +
  • w - Writes the partition table
    • +
+

Give fdisk a minute to write the new partition to the USB.

+
+
    +
  1. Now is the time to give that partition a file system. You should look into this beforehand to see what file system you want, but I will use fat32 because it works with all operating systems.
    2. +
+

sudo mkfs.fat -F 32 -n "Backup-USB" /dev/sdXx

+

The small x represents the number of the partition; the -L flag is used to give the USB stick a name.

+
+

Finished ✅

+

All done! Now you have an empty USB stick you can use for all your files!

+
+ +