* Using a "terminal" session, login in using the "root" user ID.

* The "device name" of the drive needs to be determined.

dmesg

<pre>[11122.304178] usb 2-4: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci_hcd

[11122.422152] usb 2-4: New USB device found, idVendor=0bc2, idProduct=3320

.

.

* The "device name" is "sdb1".

* The USB drive needs to be "unmounted".

umount /dev/sdb1

* Format drive for ext3 filesystem and set drive label name as "usbdisk".

mkfs -t ext3 -v -L usbdisk /dev/sdb1

:'''Please Note: THIS WILL ERASE ALL DATA ON /dev/sdb1, MAKE SURE THIS IS THE CORRECT USB DRIVE AND NOT ANOTHER DRIVE.'''

<pre>mke2fs 1.42.5 (29-Jul-2012)

fs_types for mke2fs.conf resolution: 'ext3'

.

.

* Whenever a drive is formatted in Linux, about 5% is reserved of the total space on the drive for the operating system to continue using the hard drive to operate, even if it gets full. This is totally unnecessary for a USB external hard drive if it stores only data and not to run an operating system.

tune2fs -m 0 /dev/sdb1

tune2fs 1.42.5 (29-Jul-2012)

Setting reserved blocks percentage to 0% (0 blocks)