So here's how I partitioned my disk, is this ok?

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 25 200781 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 26 2458 19543072+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 2459 17048 117194175 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 17049 36483 156111637+ 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 17049 36483 156111606 83 Linux

None of the partitions are formatted, and the tutorial I read on formatting drives says to then press "t" in fdisk and tell it which filesystem I want. So I chose "85", which is ext3 ("Linux Extended" is ext3 right??).

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-5): 3
Hex code (type L to list codes): 85
You cannot change a partition into an extended one or vice versa
Delete it first.

What am I doing wrong here?

I also tried formating that parition with:

/sbin/mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdb3

And then in /etc/fstab I have:

/dev/sdb3 /mnt/300.120 ext2 user,rw,exec,auto,umask=0 0 0

But when I tried to mount it, it said:

# mount /mnt/120meg/
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb3,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

Let me know if you want me to do the dmesg thing, I have a feeling you're already seeing something I'm doing wrong here..

thanks

Looks like 85 is an extended partition (ie, a container for logical partitions). Leave it as 83 and format it to what you want.

You may be better using a graphical partitioner like gparted (you can download a live CD which is really useful)

The tutorial (for fdisk presumably) is wrong. Don't confuse partitions with filesystems. You certainly don't want to make that partition x'85' - all Linux partitions should be type x'83' except the swap which generally ought to be x'82'.
Then just mkfs on whichever to make (format) a filesystem on that partition.

Thanks but, wait, in that case, then why didn't my mkfs work? I still can't mount.

Is me fstab line wrong maybe?

You need to make that partition type 83 again first. Then mkfs

I tried that first, actually, but I had this problem:

http://lists.freshrpms.net/pipermail...ry/012060.html

I got gparted to start using /usr/sbin/gparted &, but in the context menu for Format to-> all the options are disabled, greyed out.

So I went to fdisk instead.

Just tried that, didn't help. Same error when mounting.

# dmesg | tail
SCSI device sdb: 586114704 512-byte hdwr sectors (300091 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write back
sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 sdb4 < sdb5 >
SCSI device sdb: 586114704 512-byte hdwr sectors (300091 MB)
sdb: Write Protect is off
sdb: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
SCSI device sdb: drive cache: write back
sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 sdb4 < sdb5 >

You created an ext3 file system on /dev/sda3 ... then you told mount that is was an ext2 file system.

You should change your fstab entry to ext3

Sorry that was one of my fix attempts. I just tried ext3, same error when mounting:

/dev/sdb3 /mnt/300.120 ext3 user,rw,exec,auto,umask=0 0 0

Btw I know this drive is physically OK, because what I was doing here was wiping it, to partition it differently...

You should be able to mount ext3 as 2 (it ignores journaling).

Try a manual mount

mount /dev/sdb3 /mnt/300.120

Are you getting any messages back from mkfs ?. If not, it ain't happening - try it as root.

Worked, woo!! thanks billymayday

Now what's wrong with my fstab line, hmm...

I don't think I've ever used umask in a mount, but does it need 3 octal digits?

Actually, looking at man mount, does ext3 allow umask on mount? Doesn't seem to.

You were right, I took out the umask and it worked,

/dev/sdb3 /mnt/300.120 ext3 user,rw,exec,auto 0 0

thanks again billymayday