Finding /dev entry of USB disk

[Nils Kassube]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
> Alright, even though I've done this before and I've been googleing for
> over an hour (and I know that this is real basic stuff) I just cannot
> get this thing formated. Why is the device not being seen? I plug the
> USB device in, HAL automounts it (sdc), I umount it, and then I'm
> stuck:
>
> hardy2 at hardy2-laptop:~$ umount /media/
> cdrom/  cdrom0/ disk/   disk-1/
> hardy2 at hardy2-laptop:~$ umount /media/disk-1/

Maybe you should have checked first what was mounted with the command

mount | grep /media/

> hardy2 at hardy2-laptop:~$ sudo mkdosfs /dev/sdc
> [sudo] password for hardy2:
> mkdosfs 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
> /dev/sdc: No medium found

I think you meant /dev/sdc1 instead - sdc is the entire disk with one 
partition sdc1. But you could check the existence with

sudo fdisk -l

And something else could have happened: if you unplugged it in the 
meantime while it was still mounted and a file was still open (e.g. 
filemanager displayed the root directory of the device) it could be sdd1 
or similar now. Therefore it is really better to check the association of 
disk and device. If you format some random device you might overwrite 
vital data.


Nils