Formatting SD cards (to FAT32)

Panipal2005 · #1 9th March 2010, 08:04 PM

What's the easiest way of formatting SD cards to FAT32 in Fedora linux?

Also, I'm having trouble when I try to unmount the volume of a SD card, there's 0.8 GB being used that I expect to be cleared when I choose to 'empty trash', everytime I select 'unmount volume' the SD card window just shuts down instead of clearing that space.

Cheers,

jpollard · #2 9th March 2010, 08:44 PM

I would guess at mkdosfs (which uses mkfs.vfat).

I had to use it once after a power failure while writing to a thumbdrive...

PabloTwo · #3 9th March 2010, 09:02 PM

Code:

mkfs.msdos -F 32 -n <volume-name> /dev/sdx1

Make sure the device is unmounted first. <volume-name> is same as label. Make sure you choose the correct /dev/sdxx (use fsdisk -l to correctly identify it).

"man mkfs.msdos"

You probably shouldn't be using Trash on a vfat partition. There may be more that one partition on the SD card. Many manufacturers of flash media (cards and USB thumb drives) create special or "hidden" partitions to hold software. Examining the card with Gparted might reveal more info about the partitioning scheme.