How to rename and format a flash drive?

[Stephen]

try this one. It will fully format your drive at the same time as it
copies over your distro, whichever you want

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

I have used the windows version several times with great success. and
used the Linux version once. (worked)

On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 3:52 PM,  <joe at actionline.com> wrote:
>
> How can I rename and format my cruzer 2-gig flash drive so I can install a
> live distro?
>
> Searching the 'net, I found pendrivelinux.com which offered a "Universal"
> pen drive installer. When tried to use it, it couldn't see my flash drive.
> I then found the instructions shown below to "Restore a USB Key to it's
> original state."
>
> All seemed to work well, until step #7: "umount /dev/sdx" ... fdisk
> originally identified my flash drive by the name: sdf ... but after step
> #7 did not work, the installer said that I should reboot the computer so
> the flash drive would be recognized.  When I did that, the flash drive
> then showed up as sdb1 (which didn't seem right) and the system now sees
> it as a "DVD" drive and I can't do anything with it.
>
> So, how can I rename this flash drive back to "sdf" and reformat it so I
> can use it to install a Linux live iso?
>
>   www.pendrivelinux.com/restoring-your-usb-key-partition/
> To restore a flash pen drive to it's original state.
> A. First delete the old partitions that remain on the USB key.
>  1. Open a terminal and type sudo su
>  2. Type fdisk -l and note your USB drive letter.
>  3. Type fdisk /dev/sdx (replacing x with your drive letter)
>  4. Type d to delete a partition
>  5. Type 1 to select the 1st partition and press enter
>  6. Type d to delete another partition (fdisk will select the second)
>
> B. Next we need to create the new partition.
>  1. Type n to make a new partition
>  2. Type p to make this partition primary and press enter
>  3. Type 1 to make this the first partition and then press enter
>  4. Press enter to accept the default first cylinder
>  5. Press enter again to accept the default last cylinder
>  6. Type w to write the new partition information to the USB key
>
> *** everything from this point on did not work ***
>
>  7. Type umount /dev/sdx (replacing x with your drive letter)
>
> C. Last step: create the fat filesystem.
>  1. Type mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdx1 replace x with your USB key drive ltr
>
> You now have a restored USB key with a single fat 16 partition.
>
> *** And the flash drive is useless at this point. ***
>
>
>
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-- 
A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from
rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

Stephen