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How to format a USB drive easily in Linux and have it be visible in Windows.

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To format a USB thumb drive in Linux so that it works seamlessly in Windows without needing initialization in the Windows Disk Manager, you can follow these steps.

Warning: Formatting a drive will erase all data on it, so make sure to back up any important data before proceeding.

I had issues with seeing the USB drive after unmounting it in Nautilus, but I used the command line to unmount it instead.

[root@localhost jcartwright]# umount /dev/sde1

Format the USB Drive to FAT32: To ensure compatibility with Windows, you can format the USB drive with the FAT32 file system. You can use the mkfs command with the -t option to specify the file system type.

[root@localhost jcartwright]# mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sde1
mkfs.fat 4.2 (2021-01-31)

Replace /dev/sdX1 with your actual USB drive’s device and partition.

Label the Drive (Optional): You can label the drive with a name using the -n option. This is optional but can help you identify the drive later:

[root@localhost jcartwright]# dosfslabel /dev/sde1 "MYDRIVE"

Replace /dev/sdX1 with your USB drive’s device and “NewLabel” with your desired label.

Eject the Drive Safely: After the format is complete, you can eject the USB drive safely:

[root@localhost jcartwright]# eject /dev/sde

  1. Remove the USB Drive: Safely remove the USB drive from your Linux machine.

Now, when you plug the USB thumb drive into a Windows computer, it should be recognized and accessible without the need for further initialization in the Disk Manager. Windows should automatically assign a drive letter and allow you to access the drive’s contents.

I plugged it back into my Linux machine and I got this dmesg output.

[ 8053.559096] usb 1-7: new high-speed USB device number 15 using xhci_hcd
[ 8053.688574] usb 1-7: New USB device found, idVendor=054c, idProduct=05ba, bcdDevice= 1.00
[ 8053.688578] usb 1-7: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 8053.688580] usb 1-7: Product: Storage Media
[ 8053.688581] usb 1-7: Manufacturer: Sony
[ 8053.688582] usb 1-7: SerialNumber: CB3001301010008201
[ 8053.690464] usb-storage 1-7:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[ 8053.690716] scsi host6: usb-storage 1-7:1.0
[ 8054.978046] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Sony     Storage Media    0100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[ 8054.978107] scsi 6:0:0:0: alua: supports implicit and explicit TPGS
[ 8054.978115] scsi 6:0:0:0: alua: No target port descriptors found
[ 8054.978296] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
[ 8054.978299] sd 6:0:0:0: Embedded Enclosure Device
[ 8054.978525] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] 15224832 512-byte logical blocks: (7.80 GB/7.26 GiB)
[ 8054.979189] sd 6:0:0:0: Failed to get diagnostic page 0x1
[ 8054.979191] sd 6:0:0:0: Failed to bind enclosure -19
[ 8054.979785] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[ 8054.979788] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
[ 8054.980365] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page found
[ 8054.980366] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 8054.983248]  sde: sde1
[ 8054.983346] sd 6:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk

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