Formatting USB drive

[fehlix]

I think GNOME Disks currently is the best because it's simple to use & doesn't recuire password.
...

However, my modest experiences with the tool gnome-disk-utility were not very pleasant. I would advise against using this for formatting. The most problem was with USB formatting. Also the HD formatting was not very pleasant.

[KBD]

However, my modest experiences with the tool gnome-disk-utility were not very pleasant. I would advise against using this for formatting. The most problem was with USB formatting. Also the HD formatting was not very pleasant.

I wasn't going to say anything, but since you mentioned it I had problems with it as well. Won't touch it now. It ruined one usb stick for me.

[Alt]

Judging from errors I recently had (broken USB, not by gnome-disk-utility) it uses internally standard "mkfs.something" utils. When did you guys used it?

[fehlix]

Judging from errors I recently had (broken USB, not by gnome-disk-utility) it uses internally standard "mkfs.something" utils.

That's exactly the problem. It's not sufficient to run just mkfs.xxx.
You need to clear residual partition tabel information from the device, which includes some
residual usb-flags from with the first record. If you look into one of the
removable disk formating tools, you might get an impression that's not
as straight forward as it appears to be. And if you just clear the stick by a random-dd dump,
you might end-up having an unusal stick, which apears to be not usable anymore, at all.

[colin_b]

I got curious so I decided to give mintstick a try. I downloaded it from the test repo.

The download has two parts - and image writer and a USB formatter. The formatter makes it blissfully simple to format a USB stick - I completed the process without scratching my head once

Would it be possible to strip the image writer from the formatter to make an individual tool? It strikes me the formatter has the potential to be a really useful tool for folks who love simplicity.

usb_format2.png

[fehlix]

..
Would it be possible to strip the image writer from the formatter to make an individual tool? It strikes me the formatter has the potential to be a really useful tool for folks who love simplicity.

You might have noticed a little bug within the version of mint-usb-formater we have on test-repo.

mint-stick.png

It just stays after formating, without showing the last "ready"-confirmation popup.
Without auto-open a user would never know, when the formating has finished.
This bug is fixed within latest version from mint.
So we would need to repack a newer version anyway, either with or without the mint-dd-writer,
if we want to get the fixed version, at all.

[anticapitalista]

Perhaps I'm missing something here.
Aren't all/most usb devices already formatted as fat32 so to be used on windows, linux, dvd players etc.
So, why a new tool to format as fat? Or if it is to format using a linux file format eg ext4 why not use gparted to do the job?

[fehlix]

This might be just about the fairly ease and safe of use with such a tool, as it will show you only removable devices and will let you choose between fat, ntfs and ext4.
I'm reluctant to recommend to use power tools like Gparted to newbies.
It's too easy for inexpierienced user to destroy their data or system with gaparted kind of tools.
Such a safe and easy to use nanny-formater tool I would recommend for newbies.
We do have such protections build in into our live-usb-maker tools, but not yet into a simple formating tasks.

[colin_b]

You might have noticed a little bug within the version of mint-usb-formater we have on test-repo.

Yes, I noticed it. I sat for a couple of minutes twiddling my thumbs wondering if it had done. When the USB light stopped flashing I tried copying some stuff onto it and it worked, and I must admit I did scratch my head then. The bug explains it.

Perhaps I'm missing something here.
Aren't all/most usb devices already formatted as fat32 so to be used on windows, linux, dvd players etc.
So, why a new tool to format as fat? Or if it is to format using a linux file format eg ext4 why not use gparted to do the job?

My initial reason for looking to format a USB stick was I simply wanted to clear off an old version of MX off of it and start afresh. I used gparted to format the drive, but it is a power tool and it has the potential to trash your system if you're not careful. When I clicked the format button I closed my eyes and prayed that I'd done things right. Fortunately I had.

The USB formatter would eliminate this headache because it cannot trash the system. It is an all but foolproof way of formatting USB drives, and since it does fat32, ntfs and ext4 you can format the drive however you want. It would also make it a simple job to convert a fat32 drive to a ext4 one if required.

[KBD]

Most usb creators will write over the old iso install without need to erase or reformat the usb first. I have used gnome-multi-writer in the past to put various iso's on usb sticks (you can just do a single usb stick despite the app's name). Mint and Ubuntu usb creators also will write over old installs on usb sticks. The nice thing about gnome-multi-writer is that it is in the debian stable repo.