[ubuntu-za] Cannot format USB Flash Drive

[William Walter Kinghorn]

Hi All,

If you want to run a GUI app as root, do the following

ALT + F2

type in gksudo appname     -  in this case gksudo gparted

then hit ENTER

you should be asked for the root password, type that in then the app will start as root

the app ( gparted )  must obviously be installed first

When you go to System->Administration->GParted  you should be asked for the password anyway

William


________________________________________
From: ubuntu-za-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com [ubuntu-za-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Hannes Coetzee [scorpking at scorpking.za.org]
Sent: 01 June 2010 14:43
To: Ubuntu South African Local Community
Subject: Re: [ubuntu-za] Cannot format USB Flash Drive

On 01/06/2010 13:27, Wesley Werner wrote:


On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 12:52 PM, Nashvin Gangaram <nashving at gmail.com<mailto:nashving at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hello

I use Linux Mint, and want to find out if this issue is present on Ubuntu as well...

I cannot seem to format any of my USB Flash Drives.  I normally right-click on the mounted filesystem, and select "Format" (which is not there anymore).  I also cannot format the drives using GParted...

Thank You
Nashvin


Does GParted have the option disabled too? Make sure you run gparted as root (sudo gparted) and you might need to unmount the drive before you can format it, too.

Don't use sudo to run GUI apps, see - http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/graphicalsudo
Sometimes the partitions get messed up on flash drives and it is then mounted read only (check with mount in terminal). The quickest way to fix it is to delete all the partitions and create it again. You can use sudo cfdisk in the terminal. Set the FS type to 0B for FAT32 and run mkfs.vfat on the partition when you're done to format it.

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