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I want to know what is the "user friendly" solution for formatting a pendrive and do not loosing every pendrive you format with any Ubuntu (v12 onwards). Now, I have Ubuntu 16 and I just loose my pendrive and I need to look for someone using Windows for making it right. I used the "disks" tool, unmounting the unit, formatting it to ntfs. After doing it, I can not wtite on the pendrive anymore (except if I format it with Windows). SO, what is the big change? What should I do? I also tryed to format it with gparted, but I have the same result.

Please, people, this should be something easy to do, and it is not for me :(

gal007
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  • Disks can be flaky sometimes. I've had issues with it as well. Typically the dreaded udisks-error-quark Gparted works as advertised. Perhaps if you were to go into detail regarding exactly what you did, what you expected to happen and what actually happened it would help us help you! – Elder Geek Oct 12 '17 at 21:14

1 Answers1

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Restore to a standard storage device

If you want to format the pendrive to the standard, the MSDOS partition table and one partition with the FAT32 file system, you can install mkusb according to this link,

help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb

sudo add-apt-repository universe  # only for standard Ubuntu in live mode

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/ppa  # and press Enter
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mkusb mkusb-nox usb-pack-efi

and 'Restore to a standard storage device' according to this link,

help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb/wipe

enter image description here

Something more advanced

If you want something more advanced, for example a file system, that can manage files bigger than 4 GB, have a look at the following link,

How do I copy a file larger than 4GB to a USB flash drive?

Creating an NTFS file system

You want an easy method to create an NTFS file system (not FAT32). Maybe the following alternatives in Ubuntu will be easy enough to compete with Windows.

  • gparted has an intuitive graphical user interface, that makes it easy to create a partition table and a partition with NTFS. It is bundled with Ubuntu live, but is stripped from the installed system, you have to install it with

    sudo apt install gparted

  • The classic interface of mkusb, mkusb-11, where there is an alternative for NTFS in the wipe menu.

    enter image description here

If problems with automatic mounting

If you have problems with automatic mounting, you can try manually according to this link,

How do I use 'chmod' on an NTFS (or FAT32) partition?

sudodus
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    Worth noting too, ALWAYS correctly eject you USB sticks after wrighting to them of formatting them. Just pulling them out is a big reason they stop working. – Mark Kirby Oct 04 '17 at 18:48
  • @MarkKirby I always extract them properly. It is not the case – gal007 Oct 04 '17 at 19:03
  • @sudodus I don't want fat32. I want ntfs. Now I found a Windows machine to format it properly, so I am trying the tool you recommend on weekends (I don't trust any Ubuntu formatter anymore, until weekend, haha). The problem with the other alternatives is that it is not user friendly. I need something as simple as Windows for formatting :( – gal007 Oct 04 '17 at 19:07
  • I mean, I can not tell my grandpa "use the formatting tool and then, please, open a terminal and execute all these commands". I'm afraid he will ask me to change the OS if I don't find an easy solution – gal007 Oct 04 '17 at 19:09
  • @gal007, I think gparted has an intuitive graphical user interface, that makes it easy to create a partition table and a partition with NTFS. I mention gparted, but I won't argue with you about it. If you find Windows easier to use to format pendrives, you should continue using it. (If you have not tried gparted yet, please try it, I think it is easier to use than Disks.) Another alternative is the classic interface of mkusb, mkusb-11, where there is an alternative for NTFS in the wipe menu. – sudodus Oct 04 '17 at 19:26
  • @sudodus I tryed gparted. It is intuitive, but the problem persists. I can sucessfully format the pendrive, but after that, I can not write in the pendrive anymore. I just can read. And I don't think it is about permissions, because when I format it with Windows, I can use it in Ubuntu – gal007 Oct 04 '17 at 19:35
  • The problem is I don't have Windows anymore. I have to find other people using it for asking them to format my pendrive. That is not really easy – gal007 Oct 04 '17 at 19:35
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    You should add the flag msftdata, which is done automatically by mkusb-11, and it is easily done with gparted, if you have a GPT (GUID partition table). But of course, you must know, that you should add that flag. – sudodus Oct 04 '17 at 19:44
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    I think the issue here @gal007 is that NTFS support on Linux is not great, as it is a MS format, specifically for Windows and, unless you use Windows too, is not recomended for Ubuntu use. Here is something to read on the subject: http://www.sami-lehtinen.net/blog/linux-windows-ntfs-differences-and-potential-problems EXT4 or EXFAT or FAT32 are the recomended formats. You can also try sudo apt-get install ntfs-config IDK if this still work though. – Mark Kirby Oct 04 '17 at 19:47
  • @gal007, See also https://askubuntu.com/questions/952673/how-do-i-copy-a-file-larger-than-4gb-to-a-usb-flash-drive/952706#952706, where EXFAT and also UDF are described as alternatives, if you want portability. But I think that ext4 is the best alternative, if you are only using linux. – sudodus Oct 04 '17 at 19:57