Formatting drive doesn't do anything and shows no errors

I apologize for any noobness, I'm fairly new to linux and I've tried searching and troubleshooting on my own but I've come up empty handed.

I'm attempting to format a USB drive but running into issues with permissions ( I think )

I've tried right clicking the drive in the folder list and choosing "Format" and after running through the options and doing the final confirmation the dialogs close with no errors, but nothing changes.

I've attempted changing the permissions for the drive in using the GUI ( even though it shows the owner as "Me" and that I have full access or Read and Write ) and allowing anyone to read/write/ modify - but after submitting the changes the options just revert back without any notification ( not sure why Ubuntu even has these GUI options since they don't do much out of the box )

After searching online I've found a few things that are supposed to help "own" a folder but nothings worked that I've found so far

I've tried doing the following in the terminal:

sudo chown -R /media/(username)/(drivename) --but get a "missing parameter" error

Any help would be appreciated or suggestions of where else to look

2 Answers

you must try to correct filesystem with fsck tool, Connect your USB-Stick and open terminal by pressing Ctrl-Alt-t and run the commands as follows-

sudo fdisk -l

it will give you the dev name of the USB partition , and lets say it sdb2 for example your might be diffrent , then -

sudo umount /dev/sdb2
sudo fsck.vfat -f -p /dev/sdb2

hope it helped you. if you will get any error paste it in your question as update, or use gparted to format it using GUI, seach in dash if its there if not then use following to install it-

sudo apt-get install gparted

or install it from Ubuntu-Software-Center and then use it with sudo permission as-

sudo gparted

and format that pendrive.

The other way to format it is use windows and right click on Pendrive and make Quick format. that is all.

The GUI tool to format drives is Gparted. It does not come with Ubuntu by default so you will need to install it from the Ubuntu Software Center.

When you run it you will need to change to your USB drive by using the drop down selection box on the right hand side of the toolbar. Then go to Partition -> Format to -> formatType and let it do its magic.

I don't think permissions will be an issue. Everything you've said so far sounds normal except for whatever tool you were using to format with.