Thursday, January 31, 2013

How Do I Format a Flash Drive on Linux Mint 12 LXDE/KDE?

Q. How do I format my Flash Drive or "PENDRIVE" on Linux Mint 12 Lisa LXDE? When I right click on it all it says is eject.

I'm assuming I need to download something? When I had Ubuntu UI via Linux Mint I just right clicked > format. Now on the default Linux Mint 12 interface it just says eject.

A. You have to use gParted.
Or it might named "Partition Editor" or something with "Disk".
You will find it in the main menu, under "System" or "system Tools".

Once you open the gParted, you will understand it. If you don't look for the devices on upper right corner. primary hard disk is named either hda or sda. the partitions are 1,2,3 n so on. eg C drive will be called as had1, D as hda2 n so on.
If you have another hard disk, it will be named as hdb1, hdb2, n so on.

If you are not sure about the name of your pen drive, you can guess it by size.

once you get your flash drive, you will have to right click on it. you will get several options after that. including "delete" and so on. Simply choose "format to>" n it will show a lot of file systems. choose the one you want. (usually FAT32, or NTFS.)

Here is one video of gParted on Mint 11. It didn't say what version was it (KDE, XFCE, or Gnome). And I couldn't find a video for 12.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk1j4qXlNzg

How do I get rid of the two partitions on a thumb drive through linux ubuntu?
Q. I tried to put ubuntu on a pendrive and it did not work out well. Now, when I plug in the usb device, it shows as two devices and it has a file that I can't delete. How do I combine the two partitions and format the thumb drive through Ubuntu 7.10
Thanks linux OS! But how do I work the program? both partitions have a lock icon next to them. How do I make the program work?

A. Use gparted

In Linux/Unix, is it necessary to virtually disconnect a USB data storage device before you unplug it?
Q. You know how in Windows you right click on an icon beside the clock and click Safely Remove Hardware, and stop certain USB devices before you can safely unplug them. Is it necessary to do something similar in Linux or Unix, if so how is it done?

A. That depends, are you actually writing to the device?

If you have, you need to unmount (or umount) it before ejecting it.

How it is done? I just right click on the device's icon of my GNOME desktop. I simply choose the corresponding option then. Use KDE? Same thing applies.

Now why is this operation required?

In all operating systems (even in DOS, but it wasn't encouraged back then), whenever the system is told "write this to the disk" it actually puts it in a queue and returns to the calling application immediately. The actual write is done soon, but not necessarily done yet.

So, there is the possibility of a file being not written to the disk. Worse yet, there is the possibility of a file being partially written to the disk. Believe me, partially written files are a pain in the a....

Linux can set things up so that this is not such a problem. However, doing so will cause your pendrive to be Linux only, which is not such a hot idea to most people.

I have however divided an external hard disk into two partitions, format one as Linux only and the other as a tiny FAT disk, and copied into it the Windows driver for the Linux partition. It works with limitations in Windows, but it works.

Anyway, you do need to do it, and it is called unmounting or umounting the disk.



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