How to format the locked usb flash drive using GParted?

Question

I couldn't format/delete my USB flash drive using GParted and it is locked too.
When right click on it, the format and delete options are grayed out.
Please help me.

If there are still problems to format the USB drive, after you have unmounted all partitions on the drive, you can use the following link to analyze, and I hope, solve the problem, Can't format my usb drive. I have already tried with mkdosfs and gparted — sudodus, Jul 12 '18 at 16:09

Benny · Answer 1 · 2018-07-12T16:04:50.340

First unmount the USB, Type in Terminal:

sudo umount /dev/YOUR_USB

Where YOUR_USB is the Filesystem, to get it Type in Terminal:

df

Or

df /path/to/your/usb

After the umount you should be able to format the USB using GParted.

Here is an example:

$ df /media/bg/120GB/
Filesystem     1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1      115247656 22539168  86831140  21% /media/bg/120GB

$ sudo umount /dev/sdb1

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 16 '16 at 18:01

In addition to Benny's suggestion of how to unmount the partition, you can also unmount from within GParted.

Assuming that you did not boot from the USB drive, you can unmount the USB partition in GParted using the Partition -> Unmount menu option. After the partition is unmounted then you should be able to format it.

How to format the locked usb flash drive using GParted?

2 Answers2