The thing is that i cannot see this second hard disk. It could also mean partition table so ill address both. Ext4 is the recommended file format for linux mint, though you should know you can only access files on an ext4 formatted hard disk from linux and bsd operating systems. Ideally, there could be following major reasons for wiping or formatting a disk on a linux system. My hard drive is running out of space and i would like to wipe disk of my linux computer to create more storage. How to format and mount second hard drive on linux geek. Jan 16, 2020 this makes ntfs the best option, and, thankfully, its easy to format your hard disk in ntfs format in linux. May 09, 2017 each hard drive, usb disk has a label on linux. Disk management shows the full disk size, cannot format it. This hard disk was setup and formatted by friend under windows xp ntfs partition. Since it is an external drive, you might want to format with fat32 or ntfs, so you access the files when moving the disk around to different platforms.
If you format your external hard drive to hfs, you can use it on mac and linux by removing journaling. Skip to the next paragraph if you dont want the story. Formatting a hard drive in linux using gparted is no more difficult than formatting a hard drive in windows. Before we get to know different ways to format a disk on linux, it is vital to understand the reasons behind it. The first way, is by installing it directly to a linux pc as any other program. Firstly, connect the disk to your linux system if you havent already and launch the terminal window on it. Follow the wizard to its end and then you will have an operational linux computer with a dual boot if you kept your xp partition, the bootloader will automatically detect it. But i do not want to destroy the hard drive, i want to fix the broken part when using the hard disk tool that comes in linux mint which has the option low level format and i dont know if you write only 0 or something else, i just know i cant access that part. Nov 22, 2014 tutorial to format your hard disk with latest version update of linux mint 17.
So a while back i was riding around my neighborhood and found a computer in someones trash so i took it home and dismantled it. To format a hard disk on linux os, you need first to create a new partition. I took out the hard drive and graphics card, thankfully it was a. Format external hard drive to linux compatible file system. Format linux usb drive to recover full disk space in windows. Partitioning, formatting, and mounting a hard drive in linux ubuntu. Mar 09, 2017 with a tiny mistake, you may lose data or wrongly format your drive in a way that can lead to data corruption. The sdb drive is already partitioned and contains the sdb1 partition mounted on the root mountpoint. How to partition and format storage devices in linux. As you can see here, we own two disks named sda and sdb. I could go on with the annoyances but in short all we need is to format linux usb drive to recover, repartition and reformat that disk in windows 10.
As darnir said, gparted is a suitable tool for this. Ive installed a new 250gb sata hard disk on our office centos linux server. This is a default file system for linux os including raspberry pi. Other than using the thirdparty tool, you can also format your hard drive from usb with the help of windows installation disk, which, as you will know, is relatively more complicated than using a bootable format tool as shown in method 1. This is because external hard drives in linux unlike windows and mac do not automatically start up so that users can access files.
There are many ways to do this, but one of the easiest is using gparted. Windows operating system and linux execute best on their specific file systems. So we would want to use something like sda1 and not sda sudo mkfs. How to format external hard drive for pc, mac and linux. Mar 22, 2017 download hdd low level format tool utility for lowlevel hard disk drive formatting, with support for sata, ide or scsi hard disks, as well as removable drives of any size. For instance, if you have a 4gb thumb drive, you can have a partition on that device taking up the entire drive 4gb, two partitions that each take 2gb or 1 and 3. Usually disk drives on linux are named devsda first hdd, devsdb second hdd or something similar. To identify existing partitions on linux, use the lsblk command that lists block devices hard drives, usb drives on your system. With it, users can easily modify file systems, delete them, create new ones, and even fix issues they might have. This can be an extended partition and primary partition.
In order to format hard drive on linux, you need to follow these steps. How to fix a bad hard drive on linux addictivetips. Formatting a computer hard drive in linux involves changing the directory to the slash dev folder, making sure drives are connected and. Guide how to format hard drive from usb with bootable. How to format a hard disk on linux operating system vpsie. Nov 19, 2015 if you format your external hard drive to hfs, you can use it on mac and linux by removing journaling. For more information see linux partition naming convention and ide drive mappings.
System prompts formatting removes all data and asks confirmation for the action. This article will list various tools available for linux that can be used to benchmark hard disks and monitor real time disk activity data. How to format a hard drive using ubuntu with pictures. Open disk management, the hard drive manager included with all versions of windows. However, to use it on windows you can hfs explorer read only. Im currently writing a filemanager using ubuntu linux 10. On the formatting window, select quick format option, choose file system format, and click start.
The hard drives must not be in any kind of raid setup. Also you can enter a name for the drive under volume label. The article is aimed at beginners and new users of linux. Ive got started on this project by creating a loopback device to be used as my virtual hard disk.
To read an ext4 drive on windows, you can ext2read and osxfuse for mac. How to format disk partitions on linux devconnected. Make sure you pass in the partition and not the entire disk. Partition new disk using following command fdisk l grep disk fdisk devsdb format. Gparted is the most popular application of its kind in the open source world, so it may already be installed in your. Gnome disks based on udisks, it can be used to modify, format, and partition drives as well as to perform benchmarks on any storage media connected to the system. How do i format a hard disk under linux operating system from a. It is annoying as windows seems to be completely unable to recover disk space. Partition new disk using following command fdisk l grep disk fdisk devsdb format the new disk using mkfs. Before any hard drive is accessible, we must find out the device label. Choose your newly installed drive after fdisk lists the current drives. Nevertheless, there are many instances in which you might need to format a hard drive from the command line, particularly if you are running a server.
How to format a hard drive windows 10, 8, 7, vista, xp. Best 4 free hard drive format tool download easeus. If you need windows to also be able to access it, you should probably use ntfs. Alternatively, if all you want to do is partition your hard drive, it is possible to grab a live cd just to run gparted, mind you gparted runs quite nicely in an ubuntu. How to format hard drives on windows, mac and linux. May 10, 2017 the easiest, and quickest way to fix a bad hard drive on linux is by using a partition editor known as gparted. Follow these easy steps to format a hard drive in windows 10, windows 8, windows 7, windows vista, or windows xp. I need to find this second disk to format it and eventually mount it to my red hat linux 6 enterprise. If you want to completely format the hard drive, you may insert an installation cd of pretty much. In linux, disks have names like sda, sdb, hda, etc. Linux format external usb hard disk partition nixcraft. I have an external new hard drive connected using usb port under red hat fedora core linux.
How to format a hard drive to ntfs in linux make tech easier. For a desktop linux system, there are many graphical tools available for disk partitioning and formatting. Oct 01, 2015 in order to format hard drive on linux, you need to follow these steps. Which will help the users or system administrators provide the linux os with more free space. Recent versions of linux, the kernel, can access at least the following filesystem formats. There are many graphics tools to manage your hard drive. We can add a partition label by passing the l flag. A hard drive is generically referred to as a block device because hard drives read and write data in fixedsize blocks. Now i want to format and use one partition continue reading linux format external usb hard disk partition. For instance, if you have a 4gb thumb drive, you can have a partition on that device taking up the entire drive 4gb, two partitions that each take 2gb or 1 and 3, if you prefer, three of some variation of sizes, and so on. Tutorial how to format your hard disk with linux mint 17.
If you happen to use gnome, then the disks tool is quite useful. It is a known fact that linux executes better on hard disks that are formatted using the ext3 file format system, whereas windows executes well in a disk that has been formatted on ntfs file system. Jul, 2016 now that we have a partition available, we can format it as an ext4 filesystem. The partitions on these disks have a number appended to the end. This video will help you to format any disk linux ubuntu.
Windows will throw a hissy fit and not work with it. Process of partitioning, formatting and mounting is quite simple. In this article, i will talk about some of the basics of storage devices on linux. Select a name that will help you identify this particular drive. A partition on a hard drive is a sort of boundary on the device telling each filesystem what space it can occupy. If you want to change the partition label at a later date, you can use the e2label command. Jun 16, 2016 by drive format im guessing you probably mean filesystem format. I tried with lshw class disk, but i get the list of the cd rom and the first hard disk. Apr 14, 2020 step 2 the second step is formatting the new disk using mkfs.