Quick erase?

[bwana]

I use/reuse a lot of usb flash drives in the course of the day and before I send them out again I like to erase/format the drive to get rid of any windows pestilence that might have found its way on to the stick.

Anyone know of a quicker way to do this than opening Disk Utility and doing it from there?

 

[PC Direct]

Insert flash. My Computer/ select flash. Right click. Format.

 

[bwana]

Insert flash. My Computer/ select flash. Right click. Format.

Look up towards the top of the page . . . see the forum section I posted in?

 

[koffiejunkie]

sudo newfs_msdos -F32 /dev/rdisk1s1

You'd have to be sure that the device is rdisk1s1. The easiest way to be sure is to do:

ls -l /dev/rdisk*

before inserting it, and again after, and see which device has been added. Maybe you can string something together with automator.

 

[adsl3g]

Insert flash. My Computer/ select flash. Right click. Format.

 

[StbA]

sudo newfs_msdos -F32 /dev/rdisk1s1

You'd have to be sure that the device is rdisk1s1. The easiest way to be sure is to do:

ls -l /dev/rdisk*

before inserting it, and again after, and see which device has been added. Maybe you can string something together with automator.

Seems kinda dangerous.

 

[Sputnik]

sudo newfs_msdos -F32 /dev/rdisk1s1

You'd have to be sure that the device is rdisk1s1. The easiest way to be sure is to do:

ls -l /dev/rdisk*

before inserting it, and again after, and see which device has been added. Maybe you can string something together with automator.

you could also terminal the mac way

diskutil list

diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS FAT32 Utitled MS-DOS FAT32 /dev/disk*

 

[bwana]

you could also terminal the mac way

diskutil list

diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS FAT32 Utitled MS-DOS FAT32 [b]/dev/disk[/b]*

Now assuming that I have numerous usb drives and use whatever usb port is available is the disk number going to remain constant?

 

[Sputnik]

Now assuming that I have numerous usb drives and use whatever usb port is available is the disk number going to remain constant?

can't say if the name remains constant, but diskutil list will confirm the size, name and format.

/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *14.9 Gi    disk2
   1:                        EFI                         200.0 Mi   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Untitled                14.6 Gi    disk2s2

 

[bwana]

can't say if the name remains constant, but diskutil list will confirm the size, name and format.

/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *14.9 Gi    disk2
   1:                        EFI                         200.0 Mi   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Untitled                14.6 Gi    disk2s2

Thanks but I'm looking for a simple solution. I know . . . I'm lazy

 

[bekdik]

Find a PC and run HP flash drive formatter

 

[bwana]

Find a PC and run HP flash drive formatter

Its because of sticking them in PCs that I need to format them all the time.

 

[koffiejunkie]

Its because of sticking them in Windows PCs that I need to format them all the time.

Fixed that for you

 

[koffiejunkie]

you could also terminal the mac way

diskutil list

diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS FAT32 Utitled MS-DOS FAT32 /dev/disk*

Nice, I didn't know these.

 

[Sputnik]

Nice, I didn't know these.

it's actually the commands which disk utility invokes.

 

[koffiejunkie]

it's actually the commands which disk utility invokes.

I expected that, OSX being a UNIX and all

 

[Sputnik]

I expected that, OSX being a UNIX and all

oh yeah!

almost every OSX utility can be called from the shell

 

[bwana]

And yet there seems to be no easy way to format from the finder.

And dont get me started on those stupid little droppings osx leaves on memory sticks which confuse the heck out of PC users.

 

[koffiejunkie]

And dont get me started on those stupid little droppings osx leaves on memory sticks which confuse the heck out of PC users.

They're actually there for a good reason. HFS+ allows for metadata to be stored in the filesystem, which FAT/NTFS doesn't. So it creates that extra file with that information in.

 

[bwana]

Thread resurrection warning!

While searching the Mac app store for this weeks free download I came across a FREE app called CleanMyDrive that looks like it should take care of those nasty little mac droppings.

Description
CleanMyDrive cleans up needless service junk generated by Windows or Mac OS (DS_Store, Thumbs.db, Spotlight, hidden trashes and so on). It also helps you to manage your external drives.