Formatting partition

[sheds]

Hi everyone. I want to format my old windows partition, where XP is installed.

I want to make it ext2 format and put it as another disk for linux, so i can read and write to it easily and freely. Is this possible? I googled it but the only thing i found out is that writing to ntfs file systems is a bit dangerous.

Thanks guys!!!

[Optimistic]

If you just want to wipe Windows, it is easy enough.

As root:

mkfs.ext2 /dev/hdXX

Change the XX to whatever drive it happens to be. Make sure you've got it right or else bad things will happen.

Once that is done, you'll have a nice drive to use for extra storage. To have it mount automatically, just put a line in /etc/fstab like so:

/dev/hdXX /mnt/backup ext2 defaults 0 0

You'll have to creat the mount directory of course.

Good luck. Might want to man mkfs to get a feel for the options and such. Any reason why you want ext2 instead of ext3?

[n0tt00elite]

Any reason why you want ext2 instead of ext3?

hrm... my question also... if Windows was installed on it, it's prollly a pretty big partition, so I would think ext3 or reiser or some other journaling file system would be better

[Vergil83]

Any reason why you want ext2 instead of ext3?

IIRC, the benchmarks find that ext2 is a tad faster than ext3

as n0tt00elite says I would use reiserfs

[sheds]

The partition size is 29 Gb, maybe this will help you decide whether to have ext2, ext3 or the other one (i've never heard of that one before ).

[Vergil83]

The partition size is 29 Gb, maybe this will help you decide whether to have ext2, ext3 or the other one (i've never heard of that one before ).

ext2 is the "standard" linux file system.

ext3 is ext2 with a journal. what the journal does, is if there is a system crash (or power outage) when the hardrives is working, it will save time when the hard drive recovers afterwards. If you have ext2, and there is a crash, it will take a while (maybe 10 min) to get done checking. However, with ext3 it may only be like 30 sec

reiser (http://www.namesys.com/) is a "new" file system that has a better journal and is faster. I can tell a speed increase from ext2 to reiser.

I would go with reiser, unless you want to be able to write to the drive from windows, in which case ext2 is your only choice.

tons more info http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue55/florido.html

[sheds]

Thanks man. Lot's of help. I'm gonna try that just now!!

[sheds]

You'll have to creat the mount directory of course.

Like "mkdir backup", in this example, in mnt, right?

Good luck. Might want to man mkfs to get a feel for the options and such. Any reason why you want ext2 instead of ext3?

Not really, i am just more familiar with ext2 than ext3, in which case, i guess i just change mkfs.ext2 for mkfs.ext3, or not?


Doesn't matter now. I just formatted following these exact steps:

1. mkfs.ext3 /dev/hdc1
2. Added this line to etc/fstab: /dev/hdc1 /mnt/backup ext3 defaults 0 0
3. cd'd to mnt/ and typed: mkdir backup
4. Typed mount dev/hdc1 mnt/backup

The fourth step error comes up like this: mount: mount point mnt/backup does not exist

Strange, cause i just created the directory. HELP PLEASE!!! Please don't tell me i just sent 29 Gb of good storage space to hell.

[Optimistic]

The fourth step error comes up like this: mount: mount point mnt/backup does not exist

It sounds like the folder didn't get created. Cd to the /mnt directroy and make sure there is a backup folder by issuing ls.

If that doesn't work try to mount the drive to a folder that you know exists--that way you can tell that there is no problem with the partition itself.

mount /dev/hdX /home/folder

Just to see...

ext3 is quickly becoming the standard because it is faster and mature enough to be stable, so I would go with ext3. I also like reiserFS.

[n0tt00elite]

ext3 is quickly becoming the standard because it is faster and mature enough to be stable

ReiserFS is actually pretty stable, isn't it? (not arguing, just asking. sometimes my questions come across as arguing) Is ext3 that much more stable? and how about speed? I (think that I) know that Gentoo uses Reiser, so...