This blog is a note on how to format a USB drive on Fedora Linux 36. I have Framework Laptop, and I have a 256 GB expansion card. So, I formatted the USB disk to use on Fedora Linux 36.
Even when it is not formatted, you can see the device. I referred to the [1] mainly.
The nvme0n1 is the main internal disk, 2 TB. The sda is the USB disk, 256 GB. In my case, the sda is not recognized at first. When using the storage expansion card on another, USB-C port, it was recognized.
Detect the storage
$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0 7:0 0 4K 1 loop /var/lib/snapd/snap/bare/5
...
loop12 7:12 0 219M 1 loop /var/lib/snapd/snap/gnome-3-34-1804/77
sda 8:0 0 232.9G 0 disk
└─sda1 8:1 0 232.9G 0 part
zram0 252:0 0 8G 0 disk [SWAP]
nvme0n1 259:0 0 1.8T 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 600M 0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 1G 0 part /boot
└─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 1.8T 0 part
└─luks-XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXX 253:0 0 1.8T 0 crypt /home
/
Another useful command is inxi. The command below prints many information.
$ sudo dnf install inxi $ inxi -Fzx ...
The command below only prints the drives information.
$ inxi -D
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 2.05 TiB
used: 20.31 GiB (1.0%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital
model: WD BLACK SN750 2TB size: 1.82 TiB
ID-2: /dev/sda type: USB model: USB DISK 3.2
size: 232.89 GiB
Create partition.
$ which fdisk /usr/sbin/fdisk $ rpm -qf /usr/sbin/fdisk util-linux-2.38-1.fc36.x86_64
$ sudo fdisk /dev/sda Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.38). Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. Be careful before using the write command. Command (m for help):
Command (m for help): m Help: DOS (MBR) a toggle a bootable flag b edit nested BSD disklabel c toggle the dos compatibility flag Generic d delete a partition F list free unpartitioned space l list known partition types n add a new partition p print the partition table t change a partition type v verify the partition table i print information about a partition Misc m print this menu u change display/entry units x extra functionality (experts only) Script I load disk layout from sfdisk script file O dump disk layout to sfdisk script file Save & Exit w write table to disk and exit q quit without saving changes Create a new label g create a new empty GPT partition table G create a new empty SGI (IRIX) partition table o create a new empty DOS partition table s create a new empty Sun partition table
Then create DOS disklabel.
Command (m for help): o Created a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x5160f91d.
Added a new partition. Proceeded with default choices. It's just one partition of the full size.
Command (m for help): n
Partition type
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended (container for logical partitions)
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 1):
First sector (2048-488397167, default 2048):
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-488397167, default 488397167):
Wrote table to disk and exit
Command (m for help): w The partition table has been altered. Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table. Syncing disks.
You can see the partition.
$ ls -l /dev/sda1 brw-rw----. 1 root disk 8, 1 Aug 23 21:56 /dev/sda1
Then formatted with the vfat file type.
$ sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1
If I ran a filer, the drive was automatically mounted.
$ nautilus . &
Then I could check the USB storage from df command.
$ df -hT | grep sda /dev/sda1 vfat 233G 64K 233G 1% /run/media/jaruga/1A53-9E55
