Re: How to partition and format external disk to ext3
hce: IMHO, previous responses are leave out some stuff that, if youv'e done before, will seem obvious, but which had me stumped long ago when I first did it. See below. On 2009-08-02_21:25:43, hce wrote: Thanks Johannes and all responses. That's great help. Cheers. Jupiter On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 8:26 PM, Johannes Wiedersichjohan...@physik.blm.tu-muenchen.de wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 hce wrote: I bought an external disk (1 BT) and I am only connecting it to a Debian box, not window. Is it a good idea to re-fomat it by ext3? Yes. I consider ext3 to be more reliable than the vfat or ntfs that are typically used for preformated disks. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Has anyone done it? I guess there are millions of users who have formated ext3 before ;-) ?What is the procedure and commands to do it? Anything I should be aware of not demage it? If there are no data on this disk, there is no danger of damaging it. If there are data you are concerned about, you should have a backup of that data. Better say you MUST backup any data on HDD. Rewriting the file-system on a partition definately makes if very hard to recover the data. Hard enough that any advice you might get here is very likely useless. Just run 'mke2fs -j /dev/name of the partition' When you plug in a new HDD of the size you describe, the desktop environment that you are running will very likely auto-mount the HDD and create an icon on you desktop. As long as this icon is present, it will be impossible to run the above command. So right-click the icon, and unmount the HDD, BUT do NOT unplug it. You must be root to run mke2fs. To discover the device name and partition name that the kernel wants you to use for the HDD, run 'ls -l /dev/sd*' If this give more than two lines of output, unplug whatever other USB devices you are running and repeat. If you still have more than two lines, go slow, and think hard. Try unplugging your new HDD and plugging it in again, and monitor how/what device names change as you do that. You should also give the partition a 'label'. Hal will automatically create a mount point in /media from this label when you plug in the reformatted HDD. And will automatically delete the mount point when you unmount the HDD. Choose a label the works for you as a mount-point name. Consider what you might want this to be after you have purchased you second external HDD and want to give that HDD a label that allows simultaneous mounting for disk-to-disk copy. Once you have gotten this working, you might consider giving labels to any memory sticks you already have, but be warned: they are vfat and they have data on them which will be lost if you try to write a label onto a vfat partition the way I did it. How did I do it? Well, I can't really remember. It was long ago Vfat is much clunkier than ext2/3. Don't trust what youv'e learned about labeling your new HDD to apply to your existing memeory sticks. And be cautious about reformatting your memory sticks to ext3. That will make them useless for aharing files/data with friends who use Windows. Make sure that you get name of the partiton right or you will reformat a different (important?) partition. name of the partition typically is something like 'sdb1' 'man mke2fs' has the documentation. Cheers, Johannes -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkp1acoACgkQC1NzPRl9qEVf5QCfdkacYbYSQxQM/QIsMby4Jqxa +YYAnjJ4Z0g9m7PS5EP53aYOCuIckdyS =e6JN -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org -- Paul E Condon pecon...@mesanetworks.net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: How to partition and format external disk to ext3
2009/8/3 Paul E Condon pecon...@mesanetworks.net: To discover the device name and partition name that the kernel wants you to use for the HDD, run 'ls -l /dev/sd*' If this give more than two lines of output, unplug whatever other USB devices you are running and repeat. If you still have more than two lines, go slow, and think hard. Try unplugging your new HDD and plugging it in again, and monitor how/what device names change as you do that. An alternative is to run 'dmesg' shortly after plugging in the new drive. It'll spit out a series of messages, the tail end of which should show the new drive being recognised. Another alternative is to run 'mount' priort to ejecting/unmounting the disk from your desktop environment. You'll see from the listing the name of the USB drive. -- Paul Richards -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
How to partition and format external disk to ext3
Hi, I bought an external disk (1 BT) and I am only connecting it to a Debian box, not window. Is it a good idea to re-fomat it by ext3? Has anyone done it? What is the procedure and commands to do it? Anything I should be aware of not demage it? Thank you. Kind Regards, Jupiter -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: How to partition and format external disk to ext3
On 2009-08-02 04:05, hce wrote: Hi, I bought an external disk (1 BT) and I am only connecting it to a Debian box, not window. Is it a good idea to re-fomat it by ext3? Sure, unless you have an urge to use vfat or ntfs-3g. Presuming, of course that it's already formatted. In which case it's an expensive brick until you format it. Has anyone done it? Sure. Linux has had that capability for a decade. What is the procedure and commands to do it? You're making things *WAY* too complicated! Turn it on, plug it in and treat it like you'd treat any other hard drive. Because that's exactly what it is... Anything I should be aware of not demage it? Not unless unmount before unplugging is something you need to be made aware of... -- Scooty Puff, Sr The Doom-Bringer -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: How to partition and format external disk to ext3
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 hce wrote: I bought an external disk (1 BT) and I am only connecting it to a Debian box, not window. Is it a good idea to re-fomat it by ext3? Yes. I consider ext3 to be more reliable than the vfat or ntfs that are typically used for preformated disks. Has anyone done it? I guess there are millions of users who have formated ext3 before ;-) What is the procedure and commands to do it? Anything I should be aware of not demage it? If there are no data on this disk, there is no danger of damaging it. If there are data you are concerned about, you should have a backup of that data. Just run 'mke2fs -j /dev/name of the partition' Make sure that you get name of the partiton right or you will reformat a different (important?) partition. name of the partition typically is something like 'sdb1' 'man mke2fs' has the documentation. Cheers, Johannes -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkp1acoACgkQC1NzPRl9qEVf5QCfdkacYbYSQxQM/QIsMby4Jqxa +YYAnjJ4Z0g9m7PS5EP53aYOCuIckdyS =e6JN -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: How to partition and format external disk to ext3
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Ron Johnson wrote: On 2009-08-02 04:05, hce wrote: I bought an external disk (1 BT) and I am only connecting it to a Debian box, not window. Is it a good idea to re-fomat it by ext3? [...] Turn it on, plug it in and treat it like you'd treat any other hard drive. Because that's exactly what it is... IIRC, that would keep the present file system of the disk, eg. vfat. That's not what OP asked for IIUC. Cheers, Johannes -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkp1al0ACgkQC1NzPRl9qEUKVwCfTvhDHCWmAq2xtHH+22K7ktpL kggAoIBAEDwBCYheWzqu7iMIt76ZIZZ4 =Qe3a -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: How to partition and format external disk to ext3
hce Hi, I bought an external disk (1 BT) and I am only connecting it hce to a Debian box, not window. Is it a good idea to re-fomat it by hce ext3? Has anyone done it? What is the procedure and commands to do hce it? Anything I should be aware of not demage it? If you bought a new HDD, it might have a filesystem already. Why not use that one as is? You can create a new filesystem too [0] of course but that will delete all existing data on the disk -- you can not damage it physically though it that is your concern; you just write new metadata (the new filesystem) onto the disk that is all. From my point of view, if you have a filesystem you can use right away, do so -- why spend time for something, when afterwards nothing really changed from a users point of view. If however the HDD does not have a filesystem installed already and/or you want to have a secure i.e. encrypted disk [1], then you need to install a new filesystem. If you decide to have an encrypted disk, you might also want to initialize the disk for better security[2]. [0] http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/dm-crypt_luks.html#create_a_file_system_on_top_of_the_logical_virtual_block_device [1] http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/dm-crypt_luks.html#creation_of_the_logical_virtual_block_device [2] http://sunoano.name/ws/public_xhtml/dm-crypt_luks.html#check_for_errors_and_initialize pgpU7ZEQk6PXd.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: How to partition and format external disk to ext3
Thanks Johannes and all responses. That's great help. Cheers. Jupiter On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 8:26 PM, Johannes Wiedersichjohan...@physik.blm.tu-muenchen.de wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 hce wrote: I bought an external disk (1 BT) and I am only connecting it to a Debian box, not window. Is it a good idea to re-fomat it by ext3? Yes. I consider ext3 to be more reliable than the vfat or ntfs that are typically used for preformated disks. Has anyone done it? I guess there are millions of users who have formated ext3 before ;-) What is the procedure and commands to do it? Anything I should be aware of not demage it? If there are no data on this disk, there is no danger of damaging it. If there are data you are concerned about, you should have a backup of that data. Just run 'mke2fs -j /dev/name of the partition' Make sure that you get name of the partiton right or you will reformat a different (important?) partition. name of the partition typically is something like 'sdb1' 'man mke2fs' has the documentation. Cheers, Johannes -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkp1acoACgkQC1NzPRl9qEVf5QCfdkacYbYSQxQM/QIsMby4Jqxa +YYAnjJ4Z0g9m7PS5EP53aYOCuIckdyS =e6JN -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
