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I've got a 32gb usb with 790mb used for the ubuntu boot so about 31gb free space. How can I format this free space to fat/ntfs so I can use it for other things? Thanks!

user124219
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Probably the easiest way would be to format the whole drive, hence also deleting the current Ubuntu partition on the USB.

You do that by using Gparted, an app which are available for free download through the Ubuntu Software Center.

When open in Gparted, you choose the USB-drive in the upper right corner of the app.

Then you right-click on the current partition and choose erase (has to be unmounted first), then click "Apply".

After that the whole USB drive will be seen as "Unallocated Space".

Now right-click on the Unallocated space and choose "Create new Partition" (or similar), and choose the new partition size (the one for Ubuntu has to be around 1 GB and fat32) Repeat the process to create all the partitions you want.

Now use the USB-startdisk-creator which comes with the default Ubuntu installation (seach USB in the dash). Select to install Ubuntu on only the partition you created for it.

Now you will have a partition for the Ubuntu-bootable and one that is empty

Steffen Christensen
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  • It doesn't seem to want to let me create primary partitions? It deletes the old one fine, but then fails creating primary and says the format is 'unknown'. any ideas? Thanks! – user124219 Jan 18 '13 at 17:24
  • What format are you trying to use ? – Steffen Christensen Jan 18 '13 at 17:31
  • just fat32! works okay if I use ntfs though? – user124219 Jan 18 '13 at 17:40
  • Weird.. Perhaps Ubuntu is installable on ntfs. You could try to see if the usb-startdisk-creater will recognize it. That utility can also format the partition to the correct one, granted it can see the partition. – Steffen Christensen Jan 18 '13 at 17:45
  • I'll try it a bit later! So, any ideas why it's not letting me format to fat32? something wrong with the usb stick maybe? also, what can I do on fat32 but not ntfs? Sorry I'm no expert on these things! Thanks :) – user124219 Jan 18 '13 at 18:18
  • No idea on why you can't format to fat32. But i hightly doubt that it is your usb-stick. Actually ntfs is way preferred to fat32 as fat32 has a transfer limit at ~4GB. However fat32 is supported by practically anything, whereas NTFS is less supported. (Though it is supported by Ubuntu and Windows) – Steffen Christensen Jan 18 '13 at 18:29
  • Perhaps create a new question regarding your problem formatting to fat32 – Steffen Christensen Jan 20 '13 at 14:26
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If you were only using 790 MB for Ubuntu, the system was probably already FAT32. A Full install takes over 4GB. Did you try saving data to it as is? Most of my USB drives have a Persistent install of Ubuntu on them and I have no problem using them for normal things. To access the data while booted on the device go to filesystem/cdrom as root.

You can also do a Full install to the drive using manual partitioning and make the first partition FAT32 and the second partition / using ext4.

C.S.Cameron
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This is an old question, but the problem may still be relevant for new users.

  • If you have used the drive to test and/or install Ubuntu and want to restore it to a standard storage device, you can

    • in Windows: use the formatting tool (with a graphical user interface)
    • in Ubuntu: use mkusb and select 'Restore to a standard storage device' or use gparted

  • If you want to use the drive space while running Ubuntu live, you can create a persistent live drive with Ubuntu according to this link and links from it.

sudodus
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