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Recently, I have noticed that I cannot access my USB flash drive filesystem (it was of FAT type, as far as I can remember). Fedora did not mount it automatically and lsblk could not see the partition. So, I decided to create new partition (instead of wiping the device at first) with fdisk.

The process was straightforward (fdisk did not complain a bit), but I noticed that fdisk asks me as a last step about removing a thing called "vfat signature":

Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux' and of size 7.3 GiB.
Partition #1 contains a vfat signature.

Do you want to remove the signature? [Y]es/[N]o:

I am aware that happily creating new partition in such a case may not be the best thing. I do not know yet, what I would like to/should do. However, nonetheless, primarily I am curious, so I would like to know:

1. What is a "vfat signature"?


2. What is the reason that fdisk detects it?


3. What is the purpose that fdisk detects it?


4. Is it somehow related to a term that I have encountered in the context of Windows, "disk signature"?


5. Why would I like to remove it or not?

I have searched for a similar question here, but found only this question which does not answer my doubts.

I will appreciate any materials on this topic.