From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Mvg6o-0001Nt-Ru for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:39:51 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id D6E3BE09D7; Wed, 7 Oct 2009 23:39:48 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-pz0-f174.google.com (mail-pz0-f174.google.com [209.85.222.174]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9A9F9E09D7 for ; Wed, 7 Oct 2009 23:39:48 +0000 (UTC) Received: by pzk4 with SMTP id 4so1780266pzk.32 for ; Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:39:48 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:sender:from:to:subject:date :user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:message-id; bh=xDGA/hLcJMDyN2uYvYwwYTANg7NLVdkWjErJnuSSsMM=; b=Usb1FyUGhnyFg66A8Mj9hB6pLEcAI/UssqriF+6KO91BjQih2Cal+/8xf9FcVSvSTc QpjVnjEMByDZM27/ZtuzLiAEUnSFuFf9DGmJ7RT1vJ7qsMNFD9vWI1MA82AFRogfkLfQ AQGVtPCSnBpwkSPiHfxW/+favC7giVASBeeC8= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=sender:from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to :mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; b=whJ15R9a83BmkQJp7GR5cFETXCACGBiYtg1gWFLcO1Hz05nluS8usYhzwASVo80WrZ 9FEJscRjuMC5XeqzFrq5dShkC/umiNqXLYwSz6NMuETIhuuwJSJBqDTZ98j56W23beuO M1l0YQbV6yDo79NDUC0jvRgiddY7dCYc9TJIA= Received: by 10.115.113.14 with SMTP id q14mr871492wam.178.1254958787986; Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:39:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from geneva.localnet (officebc.workatplay.com [76.77.93.66]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 21sm461022pxi.15.2009.10.07.16.39.47 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:39:47 -0700 (PDT) Sender: Daniel Quinn From: Daniel Quinn To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Formating a USB stick Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 23:40:02 +0000 User-Agent: KMail/1.12.1 (Linux/2.6.30-gentoo-r6; KDE/4.3.1; i686; ; ) References: <200910072330.36480.michaelkintzios@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <200910072330.36480.michaelkintzios@gmail.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200910072340.02974.expendable.0@danielquinn.org> X-Archives-Salt: bcaf6891-fb4a-45ab-938d-ddbf7cac09e3 X-Archives-Hash: d54f46dfa130dcb584200379ef956392 On October 7, 2009 10:30:23 pm Mick wrote: > What's the best way to reformat a USB stick? The thing about USB sticks is that if you want to use them to transfer files cross-platform (Windows & Mac as well as Linux) you have to use a common filesystem. Typically, I use FAT32 for this since I don't think Windows supports anything else that Linux and Mac can both deal with (NTFS support in Linux is still unavailable on most machines) So, if you're going to go with FAT32, you can use fdisk to partition your stick as usual, and mark it as type "b" (Win95 FAT32) (there's a few options related to FAT32 in there, but I *think* that that's the right one). Write to the stick and exit fdisk. Then when you're back at the prompt, run: # mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1 ...if sda is in fact your key. You can even add "-L LabelName" to attach a label to the stick: # mkfs.vfat -L "USB Stick" /dev/sda1 I'm pretty sure spaces are ok there... If not, nuke the space ;-)