Comment 9 for bug 1547340

Second workaround: gnome-disks works if wiping the whole device (in the format menu) before creating the partition and file system. But this is very slow.

It is enough to wipe the first megabyte (actually mibibyte 1024x1024 bytes) which takes less than 1 second compared to 6-16 minutes to wipe the whole device in typical 4 GB pendrives. Wiping the whole device is also causing unnecessary wear of the flash hardware.

It possible to do it stepwise. First the partition is created and in the next step the file system.

The tools are there but the internal work flow is buggy. Average users will give up long before they have explored all the alternatives.

-o-

Third workaround: It works with root privileges, but I guess this is not what you developers want ;-)

sudo -H gnome-disks

First 'Format disk' to create a new partition table, then 'Create partition in unallocated place' at the plus sign.