You can use both the command line and the user interface to format a USB drive after you unmount it. Click the Close button you now have a formatted USB drive with the file system you specified.Īfter reading this article, you may have found a way to format your USB drive for better use. You will be notified when the operations have been completed as follows:ġ2. Click the Apply button when you are sure about your choice. The following dialog will appear, asking you for confirmation about applying all the pending operations. In order to apply this operation, click the tick icon from the top bar to apply all operations.ġ1. This operation will be added as a pending operation.ġ0. Click the Format to option and then select a file system you want to use for your USB drive. Now when you right-click the USB partition, the ‘ Format to’ option will become active. Select the USB partition that you want to format, right-click and then click Unmount.ĩ. You need to unmount a USB drive before formatting it. You will now be able to see the partitions of removable media as follows:Ĩ. Since we want to view details of removable media, select that from the drop-down option located at the top-right corner. The tool will open, displaying the /dev/sda partitions of the hard disk by default.ħ.
Provide the password and then click Authenticate. You will be asked to provide authentication for root user as only a root user can access and use this application. Click on the GParted icon to open the application.Ħ. In order to access the GParted from your desktop, search for it through the Dash as follows:ĥ. The GParted tool will be installed on your system. Enter y when prompted by a y/n option for continuing installation.
Enter the following command in order to install the open-source tool GParted: $ sudo apt-get install gpartedģ. Open the Terminal through CTRL+ALT+T or through your Ubuntu Dash.Ģ. Follow these steps to install and use this tool: Installationġ. Gparted in an open source partition editor for Linux systems. You can also format your USB drive through a tool called Gparted. Format USB Drive through the GParted tool Your USB drive will be formatted and ready for use, based on the volume name, file system, and data erasing options you specified. Click the Format button after confirming the details. This will prevent you from formatting an unwanted storage and damaging your system.Ĥ. Please make sure you format the correct volume by looking at the location information.
The following Confirm Details dialog will open so you can confirm the formatting details. Click the Next button in the upper right corner, which becomes active only after you have entered all the details. You can also specify the file system you want the USB drive to have.
In this case the existing data on your system will be overwritten and the formatting process will take a little longer. You can delete the existing data on your USB drive by clicking the Delete button. In the figure above we have entered USB as the volume name. Click the Format option from the right-click menu. Open the file manager and then right-click the USB drive name that you want to format, from the left pane.Ģ. You can format a USB drive through the graphical interface of your Ubuntu system as follows: Advertisementġ. Format USB Drive Through the GUI Format Directly from the File Manager Now when you run the formatting command as a root user, your USB drive will be successfully formatted. Therefore, please unmount the drive through the following command: $ sudo umount /dev/sdb1 You can only format an unmounted USB drive, otherwise, you will get the following message: You will be using the location as per the output you got from the df -h command.ģ. Use the following command in order to format the USB as per the VFAT file system: $ sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1 The last line in the output lists /dev/sdb1 as our USB drive.Ģ. Open the Terminal application via Dash or the Ctrl+Alt+T key combination and type the following command: $ df -h the first step is to identify the USB drive correctly to avoid formatting another drive by mistake. Even a beginner can format a USB drive using the commands described here.ġ. Format USB Drive Through the Command Lineįormatting a USB drive is very easy via the command line.
You can format a USB drive both from the command line and from the graphical user interface, whichever you prefer. There are several ways to format a USB drive, and we’ve listed a few of them in this article so you can see which one works for you. It happens every now and then that we need to format a USB drive to change the file system, delete the data completely or get rid of a virus that has infected it.