If the drive is listed as NTFS-formatted, you're going to need to format it to something else if you want full compatibility with Mac OS X. If the drive's format comes up as MS-DOS (FAT) or, less likely, ExFAT, you may be able to simply leave the drive as-is and not bother reformatting it.
Your new drive should appear in the left-hand column, and clicking the "Partition" tab will bring up info on the drive which includes its current format. How do you tell which format your brand-new USB drive has? Hook it up to your Mac and launch the Disk Utility app, located in your Utilities folder (which is in Applications).
If the drive comes formatted in NTFS, which is the default file system for Windows, you're going to want to re-format the drive because Mac OS X can't write files to NTFS-formatted volumes (at least not without a bunch of extra work that's beyond the scope of this article). The first format, FAT32, is fully compatible with Mac OS X, though with some drawbacks that we'll discuss later. That’s it! This is how one formats external drive on Ubuntu Linux.The overwhelming majority of USB flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats: FAT32 or NTFS. Sudo parted /dev/sdb -script - mkpart primary fat32 1MiB 100% Then create a FAT32 partition tables on the entire disk
Sudo parted /dev/sdb -script - mklabel msdos Run the commands below to create a msdos ( FAT32) table on the disk. These are the common filesystems on Windows: exFAT and NTFS To use the disk everywhere, you’ll want to format with FAT32 filesystem. When the process is done, you should see similar lines as below: 10712887296 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 11 s, 974 MB/sĭd: error writing '/dev/sdb': No space left on deviceġ0737418240 bytes (11 GB, 10 GiB) copied, 11.0205 s, 974 MB/sĪfter that, you can begin for format with appropriate partition table. Sudo dd if=/dev/zero of= /dev/sdb bs=4096 status=progressĭepending on the size and speed of your computer, this could take some time. Now that you know where the disk is named and where’s it’s mounted, run the commands below to format and erase the disk. so you must be sure you want to format and want to format the correct disk. The highlighted line show the disk I inserted and where it’s mounted.Īgain, formatting a disk will wipe the disk of all content. Sdb 8:16 0 10G 0 disk /media/richard/Private Loop17 7:17 0 4M 1 loop /snap/gnome-calculator/406 That should output similar lines as shown below: Output: When the disk is in, run the command below to print or show attached block devices. Option 2: Using Ubuntu Command LineĪs above, you can use the command line to accomplish the same. It should now be blank and ready to use again. Once the formatting has finished, click the eject icon to safely remove the disk. When you’re sure that the drive you selected is the correct drive and ready to format, click the red Format button to complete the process.ĭepending on the speed of your machine and the size of the disk, this should be too long.
A formatted disk will not appear to have files on it, but it is still possible that special recovery software could retrieve the files. If you’re only going use it on Windows computer, then go with NTFS partition.įormatting a disk is not a completely secure way of wiping all of its data.
If you’re going to be using the disk on Windows, Mac OS and Linux computers then you should use FAT to format the disk partitions works on all systems. You’ll want to be very sure before you proceed.Īfter you format the disk, you’ll then be able to store new information on it. This tutorial is going to show you how….īelow you’ll be able to format external drives which erases everything on the disk and leaves the disk empty. Most Linux users should be able to do some basic command line tasks.
However, when you’re learning to use and understand Ubuntu Linux, you should also learn how to use the command line to terminal.
During your introduction to Ubuntu, you will find that Linux isn’t so different than Windows and other operating systems in so many ways, especially when it comes to using the system to get work done.…īoth Ubuntu and Windows systems allow you to be productive, easy to use, reliable and enable you to install and run thousands of programs, from gaming to productivity suite software for individuals and businesses.