Is it possible to format a memory stick, pen drive or disk using Java?

Question

I would like to create a multi-plattform utility to format / erase memory sticks, disks, etc.

Is it possible to do this in Java? Or do I need to call native methods for each operational system plattform?

What format do you want to use? – karunski Nov 21 '10 at 18:05 — karunski, Nov 21 '10 at 18:05

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 21 '10 at 18:06

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Not directly. You will need to invoke a operating system specific program to do the actual work for you.

answered Nov 21 '10 at 18:06

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen

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score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 11 '13 at 14:39

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It is very system specific, there is no universal way to perform this. Your options are

Create a JNI library to perform this using system calls
Write a wrapper class around utilities that perform this operation (for example, capture stdout and give inputs to stdin for an external process)
Use OS-specific techniques (as previously mentioned) to zero out devices
Use something like fat32-lib to manipulate specific file system types.

edited Dec 11 '13 at 14:39

Waldheinz

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answered Nov 21 '10 at 19:08

disrvptor

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+1 for mentioning my fat32-lib ;-) – Waldheinz Feb 17 '11 at 15:30
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@Waldheinz your library looks great but I've not found any help or example on how to use it. Did you write anything about that? – Maxbester Dec 10 '13 at 09:28

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 21 '10 at 18:26

On unix-like systems, you'd be able (only as root, most likely) to read the disk files /dev/{h,s}d* and write whatever byte sequence you want to them, including byte sequences that represent a, say, ext3 file system.

I don't know of any ext3 libraries in Java, though, so you might have to write it yourself. Or a library for the file format you care about.

This is probably not what you want, though, but you can settle for it :-)

Is it possible to format a memory stick, pen drive or disk using Java?

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