Ok, NOT a question from me this time, just a "how-to" that may perhaps be of some use to someone.

I got me an External harddisk, an Iomega Prestige 1 Tb. Formatted in ntfs - utterly useless for Linux, so a reformat is in order.

Or you *could* install an ntfs driver, but that would amount to down-grading your lambo to a trabant... ;-)

Dont use fdisk to do the actual partitioning, it cannot handle the huge lump of disk.

- hook up de HD to the PC with both powered down.
- power up the HD and then the PC (give the HD a few seconds to wake up)
- type fdisk -l to find the assigned name of the device
- start parted [device name], for example "parted /dev/sdb"
- enter "check" to get the ID of the partition
- type "mkfs"
- confirm (the disk IS empty, innit? Ok, then)
- supply the ID of the partition
- supply the file system, "ext2" of course
- have a sip of coffee, it wil take about a quarter of an hour - it did on my system...

The whole thing is to be executed as ROOT, of course (yeah, duh...), so while you're at it (still as root in the system) supply some space for the user(s), you know, build a folder (in a struct?) and CHMOD the rights...

That's how I prepped the external disk, prior to upgrading to Fedora 10 - still to be done to date...

Did I squeeze the lemmon wrong? Or left some squeeze out? Hey, let me know! I'd love to read it!! :-)

Wellness!

Thor

ext2 on a partition that big ?. Nope - you need a journalling f/s. Might be time to try ext4 - you should be able to just "mkfs.ext4 ..." from the command line. I think I saw Fedora 10 has the support.

<Edit> Just saw you wanted this prior to Fedora 10 install - you could use ext4 as a parm to Anaconda </Edit>

Ext4, eh? Did'nt see that in parted's list (param L) but then, I just "glossed" over the list. Is Ext4 usable on F8 already? I'll try that...

And, of course, the backup IS a must. Only the user's home should suffice, I guess...

Thor

Be aware that support for F8 ends in early January (7th?).

Last I checked ext4 was not available on F8 but ext3 is. Currently ext3 is the "standard" file system for linux and is journaling. Basically ext3 is ext2 with journaling. Last I checked you could go from ext2 to ext3 without loss of data (the journal just has to be built). Ext4 is just the new and improved ext3. While it has performance enhancements that would make it worth using on a non critical machine, I would take a wait and see attitude on anything critical(relatively untested).

Ok, so I'll have to hurry...oh well, than I know what 2 do @ new-years eve... :-)

Big TNX to point out the ext3, I noticed that the full lump was not used, the disk reports to be (beyond) the 950 Gb, but some stuff is "left behind"...journalling or so? Possibly.
Eh, I'll just re-partition the thing...

I'll go 4 the ext-more-than-two system. Eh, it's an MT HD, what could go bad?

Thor

If you intend to install F10 on the removable HD, you may want to read the installation guide for information about making a removable device bootable. In any case, again assuming you're installing Fedora on the removable HD, you can skip all the "prep" stuff you did, and just tell anaconda to use the whole drive. The installer will (or would) take care of the partitioning and formatting. If you take the defaults, you'll get a small boot partition and the rest of the drive as a logical volume containing a swap partition and the rest (excluding /boot) of the file system.

Personal opinion: Unless you like the extra abstraction layer imposed by the logical volume management system, or have some other specialized need (e.g., large disk farm, asymmetric RAID configuration, etc.), I'd skip the defaults and just configure the whole drive as a single partition using whatever format strikes your fancy.

Indeed, ONE happy lump. No snippets. Not required, the disk is to serve as (backup) space for the user(s), but the boot is done by the internal disk, of course. I think booting from an external HD is ... risky, unless a very special situ requires it. I use DSL quite a bit, but I dont boot it from the internal disk, I use it to "bypass" the internal system/OS. But "DA MAIN OS", could better be located on a disk that is "bolted" into the system...

Thor