How to format pen drive to VFAT using mkfs when disk utility or gparted do not recognize it

Sometimes, we find that a pen drive simply cannot be formatted using the Disk Utility or gparted in Linux. In such a situation, open a terminal on your Linux computer, and enter the command as below to format the pen drive. $ sudo mkfs.vfat -n ‘Label’ -I /dev/sda <enter> where 'Label' in the quotes can … Continue reading How to format pen drive to VFAT using mkfs when disk utility or gparted do not recognize it →

Not able to mount USB drive in Ubuntu Linux 14.04 after change of UID and GID

After changing the UID and GID (User ID and Group ID numbers), I was not able to mount and USB pen drives or hard drives. This issue can be resolved by entering following commands in a Linux terminal:$ cd /media <enter>$ sudo chown -R user.group user <enter> where user is the user name and the … Continue reading Not able to mount USB drive in Ubuntu Linux 14.04 after change of UID and GID →

Fedora 16 and USB drive data files not accessible

Migration to Fedora 16 has one known issue when restoring your backups from a USB hard drive or device. When the files were originally copied in earlier versions of Fedora, they all had the starting UID as 500 and GID as 500. However, Fedora 16 creates the first user with the UID of 1000 and … Continue reading Fedora 16 and USB drive data files not accessible →

Malware via USB drives

Long ago, I recall the time when someone passed me a USB drive to copy some data onto my computer. Well, I did copy the data, but along with that, came malware. Did not realize that, till I noticed a few extra processes running on the system. Now, a few points to note: It is … Continue reading Malware via USB drives →