On Thu, Oct 20, 2016 at 6:11 PM, Mark Fletcher <mark2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello the list! > > I have gotten myself all turned around and confused on this supposedly > simple topic, so I'm hoping for a little bit of advice. > > I have a USB stick I have previously used as a boot medium for Debian > installers and live systems. Now I want to wipe it and repurpose it to > being a generic place to store data for portability between systems. The > key criterion is that it should be maximally compatible -- I want to be > able to read and ideally write the stick on Debian, OSX for Mac users > and Windows (7 and later). > > It's a 4GB stick and I am thinking of using all the space in a single > partition. > > Can someone tell me what partition type I should select in cfdisk (or > what better tool I should use to partition) and what command I should > use to create a file system on the stick using my Jessie box, that I can > then write some files to the stick from the Jessie box and expect my > friend's MacBook to be able to read them? (text files, so if it can read > the file system we are golden). > > I have tried in the past to format USB sticks using Jessie (although > unfortunately I am coming up blank on the commands I used, it was a > while ago) and have often found that Mac users get nowhere with the > result. They plug the stick in and I believe the Mac just doesn't > acknowledge it is even there (although I haven't witnessed exactly what > happens, as I don't own a Mac myself, but more than one person has > chucked a stick back at me saying it was no good [different sticks, so > the issue is the preparation method not the stick itself]) > > Thanks and sorry for the simple question! Google didn't turn up much on > this as most sticks come ready to use and there is less to be said about > "re-formatting" a stick after it's had an image written to it... > > Mark > > fdisk cfdisk parted, all works... Does not matter what you creat as long as you just make the partitions the sizes you want. https://www.google.no/search?q=mkfs dd if=/dev/null of=device of usbdisk if f*** doesn't wanna play nice. I like to use exfat for my memory sticks. We have a work environment witch includes mac linuxes and windows.
