Formating Windows partition

[Teenna]

Hello,
I want to format my windows partition /dev/hda1 and let it ready to use with my personal stuff under Debian. I don't know how to do that.

My GNU/Linux partition is in /dev/hda2 (ext3) and linux-swap in /dev/hda3. I have also an ullocated space that I can't format (don't know why and how it got there).

At start up Grub give me the option to choose in which OS I want to go in.

I 'm realizing now that I don't know how to ask.

Just want to have a partition with Debian and its updates and configuarations, etc. and have a different partition to store whatever I want (movies, music, data,etc). And I don't' know how to make the format and how to configure it so Debian can read it like another "directory"

If someone can help me I really will appreciated and I promess to follow any instructions. I was googling and there's no good information neither I don't know what to do first... and second... and....

Be gentle please, I'm a really baby on GNU/LInux but I want to be FREE from Windows Empire now.

[oz]

Most new users find it pretty easy to do partitioning chores with gparted (GUI). You can install it directly onto your hard drive, or you can use it from a liveCD such as PartedMagic, which you might find to be the easier route.

Good instructions for using it can be found on their website, or on the CD.

[Teenna]

Most new users find it pretty easy to do partitioning chores with gparted (GUI). You can install it directly onto your hard drive, or you can use it from a liveCD such as PartedMagic, which you might find to be the easier route.

Good instructions for using it can be found on their website, or on the CD.

Hi Ozar, thanks for answering.

I had read about PartedMagic I think its very usefull but I got this answer and I think I will try it:

This procedure will cause you to lose all data on /dev/hda1. Be sure to back up everything you want on /dev/hda1 to someplace else before you format /dev/hda1.

Open a terminal so that you can enter commands on the command line.

You may have an entry in /etc/fstab to automatically mount /dev/hda1 every boot. Edit /etc/fstab and remove any line that mounts /dev/hda1.

Unmount /dev/hda1 with the umount command:
sudo umount /dev/hda1

Format /dev/hda1 using the mkfs command. See:
man mkfs
for an explanation of how mkfs works. Most likely you will want to use an ext3 filesystem so the command for ext3 would be:
sudo mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hda1

Now create a directory to mount /dev/hda1 on. For example:
mkdir /home/yourusername/data

Mount /dev/hda1 on your mountpoint. For example:
mount -t ext3 /dev/hda1 /home/yourusername/data

Once you get things working the way that you want put a line in /etc/fstab to mount /dev/hda1 automatically at every boot.

You also may want to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and remove the boot entry for Windows.

--------------------------
Steve Stites 
http://www.linuxquestions.org/user/jailbait-24403/member.php?u=24403

[oz]

Hope it works out well for you.

[devils casper]

Make sure to edit /etc/fstab file before formatting partition.
Regarding unused, unallocated space, post the output of fdisk -l command here. We have to check partition structure of your harddisk.

su -
fdisk -l