Format a USB pen drive

Updated: 24 July 2026

Notes

1. A physical disk is partitioned into devices, each with a path e.g. /dev/foo, /dev/bar.
2. A Partition has a type e.g. EFI System, Linux Filesystem.
3. Utility df – report file system space usage.
4. Utility lsblk – list block devices

Unmount

sudo umount /dev/<filesystem>

Format

sudo mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n 'our_pendrive' /dev/<filesystem>
sudo mkfs.ext4 -L "my_pendrive" /dev/sdXN

Mount

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/usb
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb

Verify – 0 files indicates successful formatting

sudo fsck /dev/<filesystem>