Saturday, July 21, 2012

Changing Storage Label on Linux

On Windows, you can simply right click on a device and rename it. On Linux in the other hands, you can use the following method:

During formatting, use let say if you want FAT as the filesystem:


Let say the device is located in /dev/sdc and I want it to be named as "najmi-archsight". Issue this command:

sudo mkfs.vfat  -I /dev/sdc -n "najmi-archsight"

While let say in the other hand, you already got a data inside and want to change the label, use dosfslabel:

1- If the device is mounted, unmount it first
2- Issue this command:

Let say here I want to rename the device to "najmi-csm". The device is firstly mounted at /media/B807-ED09.

najmi@vostro:~$ df -kh
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5        47G   42G  3.1G  94% /
udev            1.9G  4.0K  1.9G   1% /dev
tmpfs           752M  1.4M  750M   1% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none            1.9G   88K  1.9G   1% /run/shm
/dev/sda6       173G  164G   12K 100% /home
/dev/sdb        2.0G  4.0K  2.0G   1% /media/najmi-archs
/dev/sdc        3.8G  2.5M  3.8G   1% /media/B807-ED09
 

Unmount first:
najmi@vostro:~$ sudo umount /media/B807-ED09/
 

Label it:
najmi@vostro:~$ sudo dosfslabel /dev/sdc "najmi-csm"
 

Check and plug back/mount the drive:
najmi@vostro:~$ df -kh
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5        47G   42G  3.1G  94% /
udev            1.9G  4.0K  1.9G   1% /dev
tmpfs           752M  1.4M  750M   1% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none            1.9G   88K  1.9G   1% /run/shm
/dev/sda6       173G  164G  4.0K 100% /home
/dev/sdb        2.0G  4.0K  2.0G   1% /media/najmi-archs
/dev/sdc        3.8G  2.5M  3.8G   1% /media/najmi-csm

As you can see, device /media/B807-ED09 was changed to /media/najmi-csm

2 comments:

  1. sudo dosfslabel /dev/sda# F:
    executed this cmd... cannot see files in the drive now!
    can't reboot anymore- error msg: this is not a bootable disk.. please insert a bootable floppy in the drive and press any key

    installed a new linux and still can't see files in that drive..
    do try and help.

    "df -kh" shows that drive as empty!

    ReplyDelete
  2. you way is "windowish"
    F: for drive usually is the Windows style, we don't do that on Linux

    ReplyDelete