How to Reformat a Flash Drive in Ubuntu 8.04+

Reformatting a USB thumb drive could be necessary for several reasons: there's locked data that cannot be erased, you don't want to manually erase everything, you need it to be formatted with a different file structure, etc.

In Ubuntu, you cannot format any drive by simply right-clicking and choosing "Format", as is the case with Windows. The downside to this is that, initially, it takes a little more to get started. The plus is that each time afterwards, it will not only be just as fast, but you will have better control over the formatting process.

To format your small flash thumb drive, follow the next steps to get started.

Step 1: Insert your thumb drive into the USB port on your computer and take note of what drive it is assigned to. If you don't know how to look this up, then open the Terminal and type: sudo fdisk l and look for the drive assigned to your flash USB. For example, it maybe dev/sda1, etc.

Step 2: The next step is to install GParted. To do this, open the Terminal and type: sudo apt-get install gparted and follow the steps to install it.

Step 3: Now that Gparted has been installed on you system, you can format your drive using it and the Gnome Partition Editor, which is located at SYSTEM > ADMINISTRATION > GNOME PARTION EDITOR.

Step 4: When you open the editor, it will display your internal hard drive. To change it to show your USB drive, choose the drop down box in the upper right-hand corner and select the drive. It will appear, showing you how much data on it is used and how much is free.

Step 5: To allow formatting, you must first right-click on the USB drive and choose "Unmount". Once it is unmounted, you will be allowed to choose a formatting option. If you're planning to use the USB drive for general data storage, and not for an operating system or similar, then choose "FAT 32".

Step 6: The time it takes to format will depend on the drive size. For smaller drives, it will only take a few seconds. Once finished, close the Editor and unplug the drive.

Troubleshooting: If, for some reason, the drive doesn't display the formatting option, make sure that it is unmounted. If it is, then you may not have the correct drive selected. Double-check your drive number using fDisk and then make sure the drive you are trying to format matches that number.