Reformat hdd

[Ron]

I have an additional hdd installed, but it has a format problem and a partition problem. Is there some information available for formatting and partitioning and remaming a hdd? I am runnig a machine with 2.2 gig processor and two hard drives. I am running a very stable Fedora Core 3. Great OS, taking me a little time to make the switch from Windows OS to Linux OS. Thanks for any help.

[Jman]

QtParted may help. There are rpms, but they're a little old. QtParted is also available on some live CDs like Knoppix.

[ilja]

You don't write which version of Fedora you use, but for FC2 here ist the qtparted package : http://newrpms.sunsite.dk/apt/redhat...c2.nr.i386.rpm

[pbtpu40]

There are many gui tools that can help, such as QtParted. You can also accomplish this from the command line as root by doing the following.
fdisk /dev/harddrive letter //under harddrive letter insert the drive you want such as hda, or hdb
this will bring up fdisk focused on the drive you chose.
At the Command(m for help): type p this will print the partition table as is currently sits like the folowing.

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hdd: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 116301 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdd1   *           1       60945    30716248+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdd2           60946      116301    27899424    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Command (m for help):

Then hit d and delete all your current partitions. *skip if you want to preserve the exisiting partitions*
You'll have to enter the partition number you want to delete, 1-4 as it is for primary partitions. If you select a extended partition then you will be asked which partion inside you wish to delete.
Then use n to create new partitions. follow the onscreen instructions.
Once you have finished creating the new table, use w to write the table and exit.
then use mkext3fs /dev/hdxx to format the new partion into ext3 format. XX contians the drive and partition number, such as hda4.

Another option is to install a handy administration tool called webmin. You can download it from webmin.com it is also on Yum and can be downloaded by:

yum -y install webmin

After installing webmin open your favorite web browser and goto http://localhost:10000 login with user name root and your root password, under the hardware tab there is a partition manager tool. You can select partitions and delete them, as well as create new ones. It also provides statistics on disk usage, as well as a simple interface for optomising IDE parameters. *So your IDE disks run alot faster I increased my throughput by 10MB/sec by chaning one setting on one drive *. Webmin also provides many admisitrative tools for managing the system.

Hope this helps.