Updated 28-Jun-2024
To format a USB drive from the Linux command line, we use the following commands:
- df - disk free
- umount - unmount filesystems, see also the mount command
- mkfs - make filesystem
- lsblk - list block devices
df command to display drives
df -h
Identify the USB drive to format
umount command to unmount the USB drive
sudo umount /dev/sdb1
Ensure that the correct path to the USB drive, it may be different than /dev/sdb1
Format the USB drive
sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1
Note that other file systems than vfat may be used, as needed, such as ntfs or ext4
List block devices (to see drive and file system format)
lsblk -f