Formatting to EXT3

dave`2005 · 04-03-2006, 11:22 AM

Hi all, im dual booting Slackware and xp, in xp i just deleted an empty NTFS partition, its now unallocated space. I thought i could just put in the slackware cd and use cfdisk to format it to EXT3, but the unallocated drive isnt showing up :/ Anyone know how i can format this unallocated space in windows or much better in Slackware to EXT3?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Berhanie · 04-03-2006, 11:34 AM

You can use fdisk to make an entry for it in the partition table, and then, assuming its name is /dev/hdaX, create an ext3 filesystem on it with mke2fs -j /dev/hdaX.

kilgoretrout · 04-03-2006, 11:40 AM

You can try booting into slack and using cfdisk there. If no joy that way, you can also try gparted which is a nice graphical partition magic clone for linux that has its own bootable livecd(23MB download):

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Of course you must create a partition on the unallocated space before you can format it.

dave`2005 · 04-03-2006, 12:11 PM

I think im going to have to try them ways, I used Paragon Partition Manager in xp to format it to EXT3, put it in my fstab file under /space but its only coming up as 22gb when its a 115gb drive.

Any ideas?

michaelk · 04-03-2006, 12:29 PM

Post the output of the command
fdisk -l (that is a small L) (must be root to use fdisk)

dave`2005 · 04-03-2006, 12:50 PM

Code:

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1        1785    14337981    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2   *        1786        4743    23760135   83  Linux
/dev/hda3            4744        4865      979965    5  Extended
/dev/hda5            4744        4865      979933+  82  Linux swap
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 5 will be corrected by w(rite)

Disk /dev/hdb: 123.5 GB, 123522416640 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 15017 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1               2       15017   120616020    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1       19457   156288321    7  HPFS/NTFS

In gparted it came up as 22gb too (hdb).

Berhanie · 04-03-2006, 01:37 PM

fdisk is reporting the size of hdb correctly. now you can run

Code:

fdisk /dev/hdb

to change the filesystem type to Linux (type 'm' to see a menu of options, type 't' to choose "change a partition's system id", and enter '83' to select a "Linux" filesystem (you can see the list of all types by selecting 'l' at the fdisk prompt), then 'w' to save). after that, mke2fs -j /dev/hdb1 will create an ext3 filesystem.

michaelk · 04-03-2006, 03:00 PM

hdb1 is an extended partition. In a nutshell a container for logical partitions like your /dev/hda3.

Change the partition type to 83 and then format hdb1 as desired.

dave`2005 · 04-03-2006, 09:09 PM

Im confused

I type "fdisk /dev/hdb" then "t", type "83" and i get

Code:

No partition is defined yet!

so i try "n" to add a new partition, "e" for extended, partition 1, default first and last cylinder. Then i try "t" again:

Code:

Hex code (type L to list codes): 83
You cannot change a partition into an extended one or vice versa
Delete it first.

I thought this might be because the changes havent actually been written so i type "w", then "fdisk /dev/hdb" again, "t" and i get

Code:

Hex code (type L to list codes): 83
You cannot change a partition into an extended one or vice versa
Delete it first.

again.

Where am i going wrong?

michaelk · 04-03-2006, 09:14 PM

Its been awhile since I've had to repartition a drive.
It appears you need to delete the existing and recreate it using the correct partition id.

freakie · 04-03-2006, 09:26 PM

Sorry for late post.

You can recover your lost or unseen partition which was accidently not visible by using Partition Table Doctor for windows which was too helpful for me when I was under the same problem