[Wylug-discuss] Formatting MP3 Player

[Smylers]

Hello. My MP3 player is telling me I need to format its disk[*1]. How do
I do this from Linux, over its USB connection?

I can't format it on the device itself because without an acceptably
formatted disk it refuses to do anything other than display the error
message; pressing the button to bring up the menu simply causes it to
say 'GOOD BYE' and turn itself off.

It was vfat. Do I want mformat, or mkfs.vfat, or something else?

And how do I discover which device it is? In its corrupt state it isn't
mounting. Records show it was /dev/sdb at some point last year, but
presumably I can't rely on that still being the case.
http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/wylug-discuss/2011-May/003333.html

As to how it got into this state, I'm not sure. I left it reformatting
itself (choosing the option from its menu) and returned to find it
powered off and like this. Possibly the battery ran out mid-format.

Thanks

Smylers

[*1] Specifically turning it says "DISK Error! Please, do disk format".