At Thu, 02 Jun 2011 08:27:00 -0700 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote: > > I have a usb drive, /media/disk and I want to reformat it. There > are several questions that come up: > > How can I determine the current format? > > Do I use the mkfs command? > > Many thanks... > > Todd Here is a step-by-step explaination (and I am going to give the CLI method -- *I* don't have a clue about how to do with with the point-and-click interface): Fire up an Terminal window (it should be on the right-click menu under GNome), then in this window type [I will assume you have sudo privs, otherwise you need to be root (it is not recomended that you actually log in as root)] # Get some information about the disk, includes the physical device name # and its /bin/mount | grep /media/disk # Unmount the disk (be sure to close any open windows relating to the disk) sudo /bin/umount -v /media/disk # Format the disk or partition. Replace <type> with the type you want # (ext2, ext3, vfat, and maybe some others). Replace <mumble> with the # device file reported above. sudo /sbin/mkfs -t <type> /dev/<mumble> There should be man pages for all of these commands (accessable with the 'man' command): man mount man umount man mkfs man sudo -- Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com Deepwoods Software -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ () ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments