usb sticks

[stevofromftw]

I have a heap of old usb sticks I want to get some things off and reformat.
Some are in .wbs format (wii games). How can I reformat them as a user and not end up with a heap of folders in my root that arent there once I remove the stick. Can I do it as a user of must I be root? All I want to do is drop and drag some of the files and reformat the sticks.

[wilcal]

I have a heap of old usb sticks I want to get some things off and reformat.....

FWIW I rather then "erase" all files on USB sticks
I reformat them as follows:

Plug in the USB memory stick. Get what files you
want off it then unmount it but leave it plugged in.


I then open a terminal and log in as Super User ( su )
as follows:

[wilcal@localhost ~]$ su
Password: xxxxxx


Then as su type the following command:

mkfs.vfat -I -n backupdrv -F 32 /dev/sdb

backupdrv being the name of the newly reformated
USB stick. /dev/sdb being the location of the
mounted stick. Mageia will then rewrite the FAT
table on the stick, effectively erasing the stick.

It only takes a second or so to rewrite the FAT table
even for big memory sticks.

[djennings]

Or do it in Mageia Control Centre>LocalDiscs>Manage Disc Partitions

Toggle to Advanced Mode
Click on the Tab representing the usb stick
Unmount it
Select the usb stick partition, choose type and select the filesystem format you want, then format.

On exiting when it asks if you want to modify the fstab file select 'No'

[stevofromftw]

Im in real need of help .
why wont magiea write to a usb stick?
the file appears to write to the stick but when i take the stick out and put it back in the file is 0 bites if its there at all.
this is happening with all of my usb sticks and sd cards?
the are owned by me and my group.
cp from konsole does the same thing even when I try as root.

[martinw]

I assume you are waiting for any activity (hard drive/USB stick LEDs flashing) to finish before unplugging the stick.

After copying a file onto a USB stick, in a konsole type

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mount


This will print a number of lines, one of which relates to your USB stick, something like

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/dev/sdf on /media/<something relating to your USB stick> type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=500,gid=500,fmask=0022,dmask=0077,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,showexec,utf8,errors=remount-ro)


Can you post the output here (in a code block). Then type

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umount /media/<something relating to your USB stick


(you may need to use 'su' to temporarily log in as root to do this). Unplug the stick and plug it back in again. Has the file copied successfully now?

If this works, there is probably a way to do this more easily. In the GNOME file manager you right click on the USB device and select unmount. I'm sure KDE has something similar.

[stevofromftw]

Code: Select all

/dev/sde1 on /media/STICK type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=500,gid=500,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec)

Is the out of mount or the bit about the usb stick . or 1 of them that was connected they all have the same issue

[linuxero]

Didn't you have an out of space error? try this after copying and before unplugging in a terminal:

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$ sync


[martinw]

Code: Select all

/dev/sde1 on /media/STICK type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=500,gid=500,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec)

OK, my previous example was from a system running Mageia 2, where things have changed a bit. Here is an example when running Mageia 1:

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/dev/sdb1 on /media/8582-3775 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=500,gid=500,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec,flush)


You'll see the one significant difference to the output you posted is that mine has the additional option "flush". Normally Linux holds off writing things to disk in case there's more to come. With USB sticks it's better to write things out immediately, in case someone pulls them out, and that's what the "flush" option is for.

We need someone more expert than I to say why I get the "flush" option added and you don't (it's not something I've consciously done). But the workaround is to force the USB stick to be unmounted, either via the file manager GUI, or via the "umount" command as I described earlier. This is the equivalent to the "Safely remove hardware" facility in Windows. Be sure to wait until the LED in your USB stick stops flashing before pulling it out. Try this, and let us know if it works for you.