[CentOS] Reformatting a USB drive

Thu May 24 23:41:00 UTC 2007
Jim Perrin <jperrin at gmail.com>

On 5/24/07, Todd Cary <todd at aristesoftware.com> wrote:
> Jim -
>
> Thank you!  That is exactly what I needed.  I had to make one change
> though since I use rsync to copy the data to the USB drive: I could not
> use vfat.  Instead, I used ext3.  With vfat, I got errors when it tried
> to do a chmod (expected).

Right, fat filesystems have no real concept of permissions.

> I do have another fs question though.  A couple of weeks ago I noticed
> that the USB icon was not on my desktop when I turned the drive on.  Not
> knowing any better, I ran my rsync with the following:
>
> /usr/bin/rsync -av --exclude=".*" -e ssh /home/ /media/usbdisk/
>
> And it went ahead and did it's thing *but* the drive was
> inoperable...dead.  Where did the data go?

Very likely it created a directory named usbdisk in /media, and sync'd
the files there. If you plug something in with a label of 'usbdisk',
it'll get mounted there, and hide the existence of the files
underneath. Provides an interesting 'low-tech' way to hide files
occasionally. they're not WELL hidden, but hey...

> I need a FS 101 course!!
Will a 104 course work?
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/l-dw-linux-lpic1104-i.html
You might want to look at the LPI study material. About 50% is junk
you'll never use and will mostly likely forget within 15 minutes, but
some is the obscure fact material that will help save your geek ass
one day :-P

-- 
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell