Reformat SSD

[last updated: 2026-09-07]
Disclaimers
Linux home page
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• First trial: 2026-09-07:
  • Had a 1TB SSD that had problems. For whatever reason, there was over 500GB of unused space that I couldn't access.
    Decided to reformat. Did the usual google for instructions.
  • Recommended procedure:
    • Find desired drive:
      $ lsblk

      This will show which drive you want to use, eg. /dev/sda1

    • First unmount the drive:
      $ sudo umount /dev/sda1

    • Now one recommendation is to first wipe the disk by writing 0's to the target disk

    • What I did:
      $ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

      This executed without error, and gave me a disk with one folder "lost and found" that was perhaps read-only?
      In any case, I could not create a new folder in the root directory. The option was greyed out in right-click menu, and the file manager listing showed the lost and found folder with grey thingies on the icon

      Then I tried:

      $ cd /media/jay
      $ sudo chmod o=rwx [foldername]

      This seemed to work, as $ ls -l showed the new permissions.
      However now the folder icon in FM had an additional little grey thingie, don't remember which was first, but the two of them are:
      a little padlock, and an 'X'.

    • HOWEVER, it was substantially successful, in that I can now create a new folder. Properties shows 50GB used (for what???) but much better than 500 as it was before...

      
      Repeating the procedure with sudo chmod u=rwx did not change anything.

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• Second trial: 2026-10-05:
  • Find desired drive:
    $ lsblk

    returned: sda1

  • Unmount the drive:
    $ sudo umount /dev/sda1
  • Format the drive:
    $ sudo mkfs.exfat -L "TB1-5" /dev/sda1

    exfat used instead of ext4 for automatic Windows compatibility
    -L allows specifying new disk name (there's a char limit in the name, 13 chars was too many)

    -f is a "full format", and writes 0's to all bits.
        This took several hours on my machine!
    -F was supposed to force override of any existing signatures,
        but it was rejected - outdated?

  • Create a new folder in root:
    Created name label folder and Documents folder from File Manager.
    All successful.

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