formatlive-usbusb
I've made an USB installer stick from Windows with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS , now I'm trying to format it from Ubuntu. When I try to format I get this error :
This partition cannot be modified because it contains a partition table; >please reinitialize layout of the whole device. (udisks-error-quark, 11)
Ok well, I found it. But it's messy...
My error was caused by util-linux(in buggy version 2.20 since 2012), which is needed by udisks, which is the package used by gnome-disks to format USB drives, which is the tool used by the "Format" option in the Nautilus context-menu.
The bug is reported here and here. It has not be solved since 2012.
Thats a bummer...
EDIT : and if you want my advice, DO NOT try to build util-linux yourself^^ I just did, following all recommendations and without any warnings, and I bricked my system.
If you don't have any valuable data on that drive you can create a new partition table with Gnome Disks if it doesn't like the current one:
Click on the cogwheel for drive operations and select “Format…”.
Select a suitable partition table type and click on “Format…” again. For a USB flash drive you probably want “MBR/DOS” as the partition type like in the screenshot.
Confirm that you want to overwrite the partition table and lose all data on the drive.
Afterwards create a new partition and format it.
Click on the button with the ✚ sign below the partition layout.
Select
optionally a name.
Click on “Create”, wait a while for the file system creation to finish (can be in the range of minutes for a large but slow drive) and you’re done!
Best Answer
I got this fixed by doing the following
On your unity dash, type
gnome-disksand launch the Disks applicationSelect the disk or drive you want to format
Press CTRL+F
Click format.
After formatting, the disk or drive would be unallocated, therefore you'll have to create a partition by using the plus button on the screen. Then insert the name you'll like to use as the drive or disk name then click on create.