How do you format a USB stick?

[bliffle]

I have a 2gb USB memory stick here that seems to have a messed up file system. In spite of the care I took when deleting a file, the space was not given back to the USB filesystem, even emptying the trash, doing ejects, etc.

So it only shows 50mb as available. So I deleted everything, hoping that might break the logjam, but no luck. So I figured I'd just 'reformat' the USB like we used to do with floppies when that happened, but I don't know what utility to use, or even if it can be done with a USB.

Anyone have experience with re-formatting a USB, or otherwise rectifying the file system?

[SuperSonic4]

Use gparted or any other like partition editor, just like you would with a hard drive

[linuxguymarshall]

There is some way using fdisk but honestly I just use GParted

[Potatoj316]

you can use mkfs.vfat to make a filesystem on it (which would be formating) but I dont know how to do it.

[bliffle]

Looks like I got it done with gparted.

Thanks, guys.