Ubuntu – How to format read only pendrive

There is only two ways that will work everytime, even performing a:

:~$ cd /media

:~/media$ sudo bash

:~/media# cd your_user/pen_drive

:~/media/your_user/pen_drive# chmod 0755 *

:~/media/your_user/pen_drive# chown -R 1000:1000 *

WILL NOT WORK!! DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME, ITS A HEADACHE!

The first involves a 125 line recursive shell script.

The second, the one you should try involves copying all your data to your $HOME directory (/home/your_user). The 0400 bug will not transfer to your local drive or $HOME directory.

After transfer all the data re-format the pendrive, then label it. The re-format from command line will blank the disk. Labeling it will initialize the disk in order to move data from the local disk to the pendrive. Shown below is what you need to do.

(No Brainer: Stick the USB drive in the port)

First run the fdisk with -l flag using sudo to verify the where the device is located (should be /dev/sdb1):

:~$ sudo fdisk -l

next unmount the disk using umount

:~$ sudo umount /dev/sdb1

To reformat the disk use the mkdosfs utility

:~$ sudo mkdosfs -F 32 -I /dev/sdb1

Pull the USB out, then re-insert it. Perform an unmount once again.

:~$ sudo umount /dev/sdb1

Now label the device. Check to see if there is a label first:

:~$ sudo mlabel -i /dev/sdb1 -s ::

Next add a label

:~$ sudo mlabel -i /dev/sdb1 ::your_chosen_name

Keep in mind this assumes /dev/sdb1 is where the device is located at. Also you may not have to pull the drive out and reinserted it. On my lenovo I had to pull it then reinsert it. On my dell I did not. I still do it anyways though.

GOOD LUCK, AND MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!

Gparted doesn't support creation of exfat file systems. You can use mkfs.exfat utility from the terminal like:

sudo mkfs.exfat -n LABEL /dev/sdXn

Replace LABEL with the label that you want for your USB and /dev/sdXn with the partition id of your USB.

You will have to install exfat-utils and exfat-fuse from the universe repository for the above to work;

 sudo apt-get install exfat-utils exfat-fuse