formatting

**sunday** · 08-21-2003

Ok I have a 120gb and a 40gb hard drive. I need a build in software that can format the 40bg disk for my Slackware so what is the command that I type when I start up Slackware to get a user friendly software for formatting. I am asking for a user friendly software for this task because it would really suck if I formatted my 120gb I would lose all my music and my movies and my other movies if you know what I mean .

**Giro** · 08-21-2003

Is you 40Gb hard drive master or slave?

**CopperTop** · 08-21-2003

During the install of Slack, log in as r00t and type cfdisk to set your partitions. It's an menu driven interface similar to DOS's fdisk.

Have fun!

**sarumont** · 08-21-2003

All you have to do is determine what IDE channel the drives are in. /dev/hda-/dev/hdd where hda is Primary Master and hdd is Secondary Slave. Then you fdisk /dev/hd* (for the drive you want to format) and set the partitions. Next, you'll have to use mke2fs or mkreiserfs (or whatever filesystem you want to use) on the partitions you just made. Then all you have to do is mount them and go.

**sunday** · 08-21-2003

Fist of all it is a slave Ol Man. Secondly sarumont I see you are giving me important tasks but not sure what you mean can you explain more. Oslo can you explain what filesystem i should use and how do I mouth them.

wow it was much easier whit redhat and suse :banghead:
thank you

**sarumont** · 08-21-2003

Ok...which slave is it? Primary (first IDE channel) or Secondary (second IDE channel)? And how many partitions/what do you want to use them for? That will be the best way to determine what fs to use.

**jasonlambert** · 08-21-2003

Sunday,

I did tell you slackware was not a user-friendly as redhat

If you really want to be 100% sure as not to delete any of your stuff on the other drive, physically remove it from the PC.

anyway.

Switch the PC on, and get into the system BIOS, this is normally done by pressing F1 or Del during the POST (before any OS starts to load..).

Most BIOS's have a section which lists all of the drives in your PC, it normally has 4 "sections":
primary master
primary slave
secondary master
secondary slave

Look for it in the bios, and find out which on of these is "mapped" to your 40GB drive.

now quit out of the BIOS (DONT SAVE ANY CHANGES!!).

put your slackware CD in and restart the PC.

log in as root when prompted.

now use this chart to work out which /dev/hd(X) you need:

primary master = /dev/hda
primary slave = /dev/hdb
secondary master = /dev/hdc
secondary slave /dev/hdd

now, run cfdisk /dev/hd(X) according to the above chart for your 40GB drive.

this will allow you to partition your drive.

At the very least, you need to create a single swap partition of type "linux", and make it bootable in cfdisk, and a "linux swap" partition of about 512MB.

"write" your changes, then exit cfdisk.

run "setup" when you retun back to the command like to get a "GUI" installer. follow onscreen instructions.

I would also recommend this URL:
http://www.this_site_does_not_exist/...pic.php?t=1000
even if your not dual booting with windows, try to understand some of the information to learn some more about it all.

Jason

**Giro** · 08-21-2003

Type cfdisk /dev/hdb it should work remeber to check the size of the drive to make sure.

**sunday** · 08-22-2003

If I do this will it format the hard disk because I don’t want to run into my old radhat I want everything gone for that hard disk? So if I do this partition will it format?

**jasonlambert** · 08-22-2003

it will partiion the drive.

The setup program format's the drive.

Jason

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