Format an USB storage

How To

Why we need to fromat a storage

Making a usb usable involes usable 2 steps. Creating a partition table and creating partitions with a specific filesystem

Partition Table: A partition table is a vital structure on a storage device, like a USB stick, defining the layout of partitions. It acts as a guide for the OS to recognize partition boundaries and characteristics. Master Boot Record (MBR) and GUID Partition Table (GPT) are the main types. MBR is older but widely supported, while GPT is a modern standard supporting larger disk sizes. It contains information about partition start and end points and the type of each partition (primary, extended, or logical).

Partitions with Filesystem: Partitions are logical divisions facilitating efficient data organization on a storage device. Once created, a partition can be formatted with a filesystem, specifying rules for naming files and managing data. Common Linux filesystems include ext4, FAT32, and NTFS. Formatting initializes the filesystem structure, creates a file allocation table, and sets up metadata. This ensures the OS can interact with the storage space compatibly. Each partition, once formatted, becomes a distinct storage unit with its own filesystem, enabling separate data storage on the same physical device.

Prerequisite

There are some actual packages needed in order to properly partiontion and format storages. Some packages should be installed out of the box.

Main package for partition tools
sudo apt install fdisk
Linux File systems (mkfs)
sudo apt install e2fsprogs
Proprietary file systems
sudo apt install exfat-utils exfatprogs exfat-fuse

Step to format an USB

Step 1
Use lsblk to determine which device (storage) to partition

In this example you clearly see that sde was “added”. This mean that this is the device which we want to create a partion table on. After this procedure we need to format each partition with a filesystem.

One very important note is that e.i sdb referes to the storage, and sdb1, sdb2 and sdb3 referes to the actual partition! Very important to understand this difference!
P.S It is also possible to see all storages with the command sudo apt install fdisk

Step 2
Make sure that all partitions are unmounted on the device that you want to create a partion table, so in our case
sudo umount /dev/sde1

Step 3
Now its the time to actually partion the storage and format it. We will only create one partition with GPT and ext4 filesystem(linux only)

We will use the fdisk program for createing the partition table. Pay close attention that we are using the device (no number)
sudo fdisk /dev/sde

Create a GPT partition table
g

Create partition now
n

Create Press Enter (default) – 3 times now
Enter

Write to storage now
w

Format the partition now. Pay special attention for the number 1 which means partition 1
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sde1

The formatting of the storage (usb) is done. Now you can use it in a linux environment.
Just mount it and use it!

Step 4
This actually may be optional
Mount the device to a folder
sudo mount /dev/sde1 /mnt/usb-storage
cd into /mnt/usb-storage and change permission in current directory
sudo chmod 777 .

Commands

Some commonly used crontab commands

Edit own crontabs crontab -e
Lists all cron jobs crontab -l
Multiple cronjobs in textfile crontab /path/to/the/file/containing/cronjobs.txt
Deletes all cron jobs crontab -r
Manage other crontabs(may require elevated privileges) crontab -u otherusername -e

DESCRIPTION	COMMAND
Edit own crontabs	crontab -e
Lists all cron jobs	crontab -l
Multiple cronjobs in textfile	crontab /path/to/the/file/containing/cronjobs.txt
Deletes all cron jobs	crontab -r
Manage other crontabs (may require elevated privileges)	crontab -u otherusername -e