4/4/2019 Format USB drives In FAT32 Or NTFS Format In Arch Linux – OSTechNix

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BY SK · PUBLISHED JUNE 18, 2016 · UPDATED JUNE 13, 2018

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4/4/2019 Format USB drives In FAT32 Or NTFS Format In Arch Linux – OSTechNix

Today, we will see how to format USB

drives in FAT or NTFS le system in Arch
Linux and its derivatives like Antergos
and Manjaro Linux. There are many GUI
tools available to get this job done.
However, some of you might
wondering if there is any way to format
the usb drives from command line. No
worries! This tutorial will teach you
how.  The following are the two
commands that I use throughout this
guide to format the USB drives in FAT
or NTFS format. TO SEARCH, TYPE AND HIT ENTER

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1. mkfs.vfat
2. mkfs.ntfs

As the name implies, mkfs.vfat will

format an USB drive in FAT, and
mkfs.ntfs will format the USB drive in
NTFS format.

These two utilities comes preinstalled

with most Linux distributions. However,
these two aren’t available in my Arch
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4/4/2019 Format USB drives In FAT32 Or NTFS Format In Arch Linux – OSTechNix

Linux minimal system. After a few

google search, I came to know that I
must install the following two packages
in-order to use those commands.

1. dosfstools
2. ntfsprogs

They are available in the default

repositories of Arch Linux. So, you can
install them by running the following
command using Pacman as shown
below.

$ sudo pacman -S dosfstools

To install ntfsprogs, run:

$ sudo pacman -S ntfsprogs

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Now, let us see how to format an USB

drive in MSDOS le system.  The
commands are same for almost all
  
Linux distributions.

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First, we will see how to format the usb Jelly n
drive in FAT.
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[Part 4]
Format USB drive in FAT32
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4/4/2019 Format USB drives In FAT32 Or NTFS Format In Arch Linux – OSTechNix

First we will nd out the USB drive

name (This is what we say Drive letter in
Windows OS).

It’s very simple, but at the same time

you should be very careful if you are
using dual-booting with Windows. If
you don’t be careful, you might format
one of your windows partitions
accidentally.

We can easily nd out our disk drive

letters using fdisk command.

Plug your USB drive and run the

following command to display the
partition table.

$ sudo fdisk -l

Sample output:

Disk /dev/sda: 465.8 GiB, 5

Units: sectors of 1 * 512
Sector size (logical/physi
I/O size (minimum/optimal)
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x4c986a3

Device Boot Start End Secto

/dev/sda1 2048 206847 2048
/dev/sda2 4401152 97677316

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4/4/2019 Format USB drives In FAT32 Or NTFS Format In Arch Linux – OSTechNix

/dev/sda3 206848 4401151 4

Partition table entries are

Disk /dev/sdb: 7.5 GiB, 80
Units: sectors of 1 * 512
Sector size (logical/physi
I/O size (minimum/optimal)
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xfdc0107

Device Boot Start End Secto

/dev/sdb1 * 63 15728639 15

As you see in the above output, I have

two disks. One is my local hard disk (500
GB), and another one is my USB drive (8
GB).

Again, I warn you please be careful if

you are using dual boot with Windows
or if you have multiple OSs in the single
hard drive. If you use dual boot, this
command will also display the Windows
drives names like /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdc1
etc., in the above result. Just make sure
you are formatting the correct drive.

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4/4/2019 Format USB drives In FAT32 Or NTFS Format In Arch Linux – OSTechNix

As I mentioned in the above

screenshot, my USB drive name is
/dev/sdb1.

Once you nd out the USB drive name,

unmount it. Because you can’t format a
mounted drive. Do not un-plug, just
unmount the USB drive.

To unmount the drive, run:

$ sudo umount /dev/sdb1

Sample output:

Finally, format the USB drive in FAT32

using command:

$ sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1

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4/4/2019 Format USB drives In FAT32 Or NTFS Format In Arch Linux – OSTechNix

Sample output:

mkfs.fat 4.0 (2016-05-06)

After formatting the drive, just

unmount using it command:

$ sudo umount /dev/sdb1

Again,  re-plug the USB drive  to  start

using the it.

For further details, refer man pages.

$ man mkfs.vfat

Format USB drive in NTFS

Similarly, To format the drive in NTFS,
just run:

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4/4/2019 Format USB drives In FAT32 Or NTFS Format In Arch Linux – OSTechNix

$ sudo mkfs.ntfs /dev/sdb1

For more options, refer man pages.

$ man mkfs.ntfs

Set label name to USB

drives
To set drive label name use ‘-n’ ag.

For example, the following command

will format my USB drive in FAT32
format and set label name for my USB
drive as “sk”.

$ sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1

Please note that lowercase labels might

not work properly with DOS or
Windows. So, use upper case label
name.

And, that’s all for now. You know now

how to format an USB drive in MSDOS
lesystem in Arch Linux. Hope this
helps. If you nd this guide helpful,
please share it on your social,
prpfessional networks and support
OSTechNix.

More good stu s to come. Stay tuned!

Cheers!

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