2/9/2020 make FAT32 disk on linux OS

As soon as you plugged your USB device, you can monitor using dmesg:

sudo dmesg | tail

You can also use the following command to know the entry in /dev filesystem (here sdc):

sudo lsblk

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 119.2G  0 disk
├─sda1   8:1    0    40G  0 part /
├─sda2   8:2    0    70G  0 part /home
└─sda3   8:3    0   9.2G  0 part [SWAP]
sdb      8:16   0 298.1G  0 disk
└─sdb1   8:17   0 298.1G  0 part /home/userX/hd
sdc      8:32   1  14.4G  0 disk
├─sdc1   8:33   1   621M  0 part
├─sdc2   8:34   1    61M  0 part
└─sdc3   8:35   1   300K  0 part

If you want to know if it has been automatically mounted or not, you can use the mount command too, but notice that the last column of lsblk indicates the mountpoint. For more details on filesystems, add a -f flag lsblk -f

Delete and renew partitions

After you located the drive, and made sure it is not mounted, we can use the fdisk utility.

sudo fdisk /dev/sdg
Command (m for help): p
 
Disk /dev/sdg: 3874 MB, 3874488320 bytes
42 heads, 8 sectors/track, 22521 cylinders, total 7567360 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0006301d
 
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdg1            2048     7567359     3782656    b  W95 FAT32

Now partition 1 can be deleted :

Command (m for help): d
Selected partition 1
Partition 1 is deleted
 
Command (m for help): p
 
Disk /dev/sdg: 3874 MB, 3874488320 bytes
42 heads, 8 sectors/track, 22521 cylinders, total 7567360 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0006301d
 
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

Next step, create a new primary partition

Command (m for help): n
Partition type:
   p   primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
   e   extended
Select (default p): 
Using default response p
Partition number (1-4, default 1): 
Using default value 1
First sector (2048-7567359, default 2048): 
Using default value 2048
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-7567359, default 7567359): 
Using default value 7567359
Partition 1 of type Linux and of size 3,6 GiB is set
 
Command (m for help): p
 
Disk /dev/sdg: 3874 MB, 3874488320 bytes
42 heads, 8 sectors/track, 22521 cylinders, total 7567360 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0006301d
 
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdg1            2048     7567359     3782656   83  Linux

By default, partition type will have id 83 (Linux) and should be changed to FAT32. Type t command and set partition id as b. All partition codes can be listed with L command.

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): b
Changed system type of partition 1 to b (W95 FAT32)
 
Command (m for help): p
 
Disk /dev/sdg: 3874 MB, 3874488320 bytes
42 heads, 8 sectors/track, 22521 cylinders, total 7567360 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0006301d
 
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdg1            2048     7567359     3782656    b  W95 FAT32

Then you can set the partition as active, to make it bootable. Type in a command and choose first partition number

Command (m for help): a
Partition number (1-4): 1
 
Command (m for help): p
 
Disk /dev/sdg: 3874 MB, 3874488320 bytes
42 heads, 8 sectors/track, 22521 cylinders, total 7567360 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0006301d
 
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdg1   *        2048     7567359     3782656    b  W95 FAT32

You can now write changes to disk and exit.

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Format the USB storage device as FAT32

Now a FAT-32 file-system can be created on the drive. Note that you might have to install some dependencies: sudo pacman -S dosfstools

mkfs -t vfat -n MY_DRIVE_NAME /dev/sdg1

Now you're good to go : using the fdisk utility, list your devices partitions.

sudo fdisk -l

Eject and reinsert your drive, it should be empty and mounted

df -HT
Filesystem     Type      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs         rootfs     30G  5,6G   23G  20% /
devtmpfs       devtmpfs  1,8G     0  1,8G   0% /dev
tmpfs          tmpfs     1,8G  868K  1,8G   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs          tmpfs     1,8G  1,3M  1,8G   1% /run
/dev/sda1      ext2       30G  5,6G   23G  20% /
tmpfs          tmpfs     1,8G     0  1,8G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs          tmpfs     1,8G     0  1,8G   0% /media
/dev/sdb5      ext4      204G   41G  153G  22% /home
/dev/sdb1      ext4       20G  9,1G  9,7G  49% /var
/dev/sdb3      ext4      4,0G  137M  3,7G   4% /tmp
/dev/sdg1      vfat      3,7G  4,0K  3,7G   1% /run/media/dbunic/DF85-CAF4

Mount am external usb drive with ownership and permissions

This can be useful too :

sudo mount -o umask=0022,gid=1001,uid=1001 /dev/sdc1 $HOME/mnt

Source: adapted from https://www.redips.net/linux/create-fat32-usb-drive