How to format usb flash drive linux debian

If your usb flash drive is already infected by a virus (my experience, my usb flash drive was infected with virus on my brother's computer, use windows platform), one of solution to solve this problem is to format your usb flash drive.

I use Debian operating system for my computer. Follow these steps to format usb flash drive.

1. login as root, type 'su' (without quotes)

$ su

2. type 'df'

# df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 237755108 158827804 66850044 71% /
tmpfs 485812 0 485812 0% /lib/init/rw
udev 10240 56 10184 1% /dev
tmpfs 485812 0 485812 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sdb1 118725 5652 106943 6% /media/usbdisk

3. umount your flash drive, type

# umount /media/usbdisk/

4. type 'apt-get install dosfstools' to install mkdosfs

# apt-get install dosfstools

5. type mkdosfs -v -F16 -n'YOURLABEL' /dev/sdb1

# mkdosfs -v -F16 -n'YOURLABEL' /dev/sdb1
mkdosfs 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
/dev/sdb1 has 16 heads and 32 sectors per track,
logical sector size is 512,
using 0xf8 media descriptor, with 245216 sectors;
file system has 2 16-bit FATs and 4 sectors per cluster.
FAT size is 239 sectors, and provides 61176 clusters.
Root directory contains 512 slots.
Volume ID is 4938d3f0, volume label YOURLABEL .

Congratulations! Your usb flash drive has been formatted.

For further information about mkdosfs, type 'man mkdosfs'