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how do i format hardrives in linux? I want to erase my windows partition. i dont have my live cd with me. is there a program that is available to linux?

Might find what you are looking HERE.

i need something in a language that i can understand. again, can anyone tell me how to reformat a drive in linux? i ran the fdisk command and i get a this:


could anyone tell me what this means? i am having alot of unnecessary trouble with this and im starting to get frustrated.

what's the output of "mount"

also, describe your setup (what hard drives are hooked up ide/sata)

IDE drives are hdx, SATA drives are sdx

here:


i have 1 hard drive. it is ide i partitioned it into 2 partitions. 1 for windows and one for ubuntu. when i look at the volumes in windows, there are 3 partitions. the 3rd one i didn't make. i think it made itself when i installed ubuntu.

gparted should be able to help you, but the ID of your windows partition is /dev/sda1

I personally use jfs, and the command for that is

And yet, you fail to specify this in your initial post. Seriously dude, a little self help here.

In any case, assuming you're still playing around with Ubuntu, you should be able run gparted via System -> Administration -> Gnome Partition Editor. If it's not there, you can install it via System -> Administration ->Synaptic.

You may have to remove the partition and re-add it and flag it to format, but you should be able to simply format it from there.

If you're looking to do this via a command prompt, you'll want to know what kind of partitions you have. If you're using ext2 or ext3, you'll be using mke2fs. Clearly if you're using a Rieser file system, you'll use mkreiserfs instead.

Since your screenshots reflect you're using ext3, you'll want to use mke2fs. Once you have that done, you'll want to edit your fstab so this thing mounts permanently, but you should be able to test by manually mounting the partition via the command

Mount /dev/sda3 (of whatever the disk you formated was)

btw: fdisk -l should list all the partitions you have currently. You will need to repartition this, so before anyone can start to explain how to partition this through a command proompt, you'll want to post the output of fdisk -l as you will need to remove the partition and then recreate it. Personally, I'd still be using the gnome partition manager

sorry bout that. i was really frustated. anyway...

here is a screen shot of gParted after i formated the first partition.

i formatted it into another ext3 file system. i am going to delete this partition and resize the big one.

i am trying to unmount the big partition and resize to take up the entire hard drive. but i get this error message:


i am also curious as to what the last two partitions are? if they are not needed, than i might as well reformat and resize them.

here is the screen shot of the command "fdisk -l" there is nothing to show, for nothing showed up in the next line.

the next to last one is a extended partition, a partition that holds a second partition table.

The last one is the linux version of a swap file.

Try sudo fdisk -l

and I do not see any windows partitions on that screenshot. Different drive? That selector in the upper right probably has a couple of other things in there.

the first partition was the windows one, but i unmounted it, reformatted it to ext3 and remounted it.

i typed in the command you gave me but when i go and type in my password, nothing shows up.

I guess it doesn't matter at this point.

I guess to be safe, you are using L and not 1 or the pipe right?

Did you get that mount point in your fstab?

i was using L

what is fstab?

how about the error message i keep on getting. i tried lookin on the file system for another file system but no luck.

what are the two partitions at the end of the hardrive?

I think you missed this:

Basically it's a text file that tells linux where to mount things on boot. It's located in your /etc directory



If you're talking about the error above that said "could not unmount..", basic you're trying to unmount the partition you're currently using. The same would occur in windows if you tried to delete your systemroot partition. You'll definitely need to use the liveCD to resize that.

woops, didnt see that.

is it possible that i can append drive letters to the hard drives?

huh?

What are you trying to accomplish?

i was just wondering if i could append drive letters like in windows. just a question.

I'm not quite certain what you mean by append, but if you're looking to assign designations like you see in windows, the answer is no.