formating hard drive

icanspellnew · 11-13-2004, 09:47 AM

hmm....kinda noob, but i need to format the hard drive and dont know how??

keep in mind, also, i dont have the linux discs (dont know if i need them or not)

and i am running mandrake 10

thanks

david_ross · 11-13-2004, 09:52 AM

You can use mkfs to format a partition in almost any format you want.

icanspellnew · 11-13-2004, 09:56 AM

umm, sorry but, what are mkfs?

david_ross · 11-13-2004, 10:17 AM

mkfs=MaKe FileSystem:
man mkfs

icanspellnew · 11-13-2004, 10:52 AM

so how do i remove a partition with mkfs?

david_ross · 11-13-2004, 12:38 PM

You don't. If you want to modify your partition table you will need to use fdisk or cfdisk which is a bit easier.

goofyheadedpunk · 11-13-2004, 12:47 PM

This entry in the LQwiki might help a bit.

icanspellnew · 11-13-2004, 03:41 PM

ok, actually that did help a lot.
but if i just want to completley remove all operating systems from my computer how do i go abuot doin so??

ps. thanks a lot for helping

david_ross · 11-13-2004, 03:51 PM

Boot with a boot disk of some sort and remove all partitions with fdisk.

Note that the information could still be recovered so you might want to write random data to the hard drive if you are wanting it to be secure,

michaelk · 11-13-2004, 03:56 PM

Is this on the same drive that you are running Mandrake or another drive?

Is your question how to delete existing parititions? You can use the fdisk command.