Re: partition second hard drive

• Previous message: Pigeon: "Re: Linux Installation with SCSI Drive"
• In reply to: cr: "Re: partition second hard drive"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:06:59 +0100
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

On Mon, Sep 27, 2004 at 10:36:45AM +1200, cr wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 04:01, dougpol1@adelphia.net wrote:
> > Hello all,
> > I had a dual boot system with Windows and Linux
> > installed. Bought a new cd writer and found out I had to
> > upgrade win 98 to SE to use new software for writer. SE
> > costs more than the writer did. Nuts to microsoft.
> > Took Windows out and installed Debian Sarge with
> > the new installer. I really am happy with it.
> > My question is How do I reformat my second hard
> > drive that is presently Fat 32 windows so that Linux can
> > use it for backup. I tried cfdisk but linux cannot see the
> > drive. I have a Maxtor cd for the drive, which is Maxtor,
> > but there is no Linux formating available on it. I sent
> > them an e-mail asking why not.
> > Thanks in advance for any help.
> > Doug
>
> That's very odd. fdisk or cfdisk can usually see a FAT drive (I've been
> messing around with multiple hard drives for yonks and never had a problem
> with 'seeing' them). Sorry to ask this but you are giving cfdisk the right
> address (as in "cfdisk /dev/hdb") I suppose? Umm, if you swapped drives
> around I suppose you did the right things with the drive select jumpers?
> (sorry to mention that but these things happen....)

Doubt that's it, his dmesg output shows both drives being recognised.

> I've never found the make of drive to make any difference, and I've used
> Maxtor, Seagate, Fujitsu, Quantum, Western Digital... so I'm not sure what
> the Maxtor CD would have on it other than fairly generic formatting tools.
>
> I believe it's usually recommended to remove partitions using the software
> that created them - that is, using Windows FDISK to remove the partitions on
> the drive; then Linux fdisk/cfdisk to create new (and, I think, mke2fs to
> format them). Whether your old W98 CD (if you have one) will allow you to
> run FDISK without installing Windows, I have no idea. (Nor do I know
> whether W98 will even contemplate addressing anything other than the
> first-and-only partition in the machine :)

Generally you *create* partitions with software for the OS that's
going to use them, which means that setting up a dual-boot system
involves using FDISK first and cfdisk second because cfdisk is
intelligent enough not to trash FDISK's partitions but not vice versa.
Deleting partitions isn't a problem. If you really want to make sure,
use dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdb bs=512 count=1 to nuke the partition
table.

What exactly is the output when you run cfdisk /dev/hdb ?

-- 
Pigeon
Be kind to pigeons
Get my GPG key here: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x21C61F7F

-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org 
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

• application/pgp-signature attachment: Digital signature

• Previous message: Pigeon: "Re: Linux Installation with SCSI Drive"
• In reply to: cr: "Re: partition second hard drive"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]