I'm slowly getting the hang of this and have an unusual question to ask. My 2 TB HDD is partition for Windows 10 and Linux Mint Debian Edition 3 (with which I am unhappy). When trying to install Arch, I get to the place to list the partitions (-l) and am only shown 11 partitions. I know there is a 12th one which is about 600 gigs which is totally blank and unformatted, but is unlisted. DO I need to format it in some way to display it? I do have Arch on a bootable USB stick.

Thanks,
tlcmd

How is your 2T disk partitioned? If MBR, with more than four existing partitions, one of the first four, called the extended, is not capable of supporting any filesystem, because it is a mere placeholder for locating the start of the logical partition chain. What is the output fromfor the HD?

dick@library:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for dick:
Disk /dev/sda: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: C30BDCDA-57DE-46C8-932E-D500BA9E794A

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 2097151 2095104 1023M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda2 2097152 2834431 737280 360M EFI System
/dev/sda3 2834432 3096575 262144 128M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda4 3096576 1025286362 1022189787 487.4G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda5 1025288192 1027096575 1808384 883M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda6 1029554176 1032011775 2457600 1.2G Linux swap
/dev/sda7 1032011776 1095499775 63488000 30.3G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda8 1095499776 2357362687 1261862912 601.7G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda9 3874932736 3907012607 32079872 15.3G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda11 3907012608 3907028991 16384 8M Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/sdg: 29.8 GiB, 32023511040 bytes, 62545920 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0b341030

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdg1 * 0 1200127 1200128 586M 0 Empty
/dev/sdg2 164 131235 131072 64M ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
dick@library:~$


Now, I know there is also a 600 Gig area on this HDD which is not formatted and listed as sda 12 which is where I plan to install Arch Linux. Where do I go from here? do I format that partition to ext4?

Thanks,
tlcmd

You have a 1,517,570,049 logical sector empty space gap between sda8 and sda9, over 720G in one block of freespace. You can install Arch there either by first creating whatever partition(s) you want it to use, or using Arch's partitioner to do it.

Please use code tags for pasting command output.

Thanks,
I'll give it a shot and let you know the results.
tlcmd

Followup question: do I need to format that 720 Gig free space as a (new) partition prior to installing Arch so it will be sda12 or will Arch find it on the install anyway?
Thanks,
tlcmd

either use fdisk or cfdisk commands or if you have a linux desktop use gparted.
Gparted will help you visualize your disk partition table better.
Create, format a partition to ext4, mount it
then use the base isntall from arch into the /mnt
Then you have to chroot to it to configure it as per the arch wiki
Without looking you need to create a valid fstab (genfstab), grub or whatever bootloader you use, passwords for root and user, and you are on.
If you want arch without systemd use obarun

I use the following when I do partitions..


(x representing your drive. mine is sda)

commands x then z then y y

after that

example partition list

-sda1 (our boot partition)
-sda2 (our swap partition)
-sda3 (our root partition)
-sda4 (our home partition)

I’m going to create my boot partition first. I am using EFI, so EF00 will be our hex code (NOT EF02. I’ve racked my brain over this error before trying to figure out why EFI system wouldn’t boot). I generally dedicate 1Gb (1024MiB) of space to the boot sector so that I have room to breathe in case I need to change anything or add multiple boot kernels, although arch wiki recommends only 200-300Mb. I also will name it “boot”.

Now, arrow down to the next free space available, then go to [New] again.

-Creating swap partition, the swap debate, choosing a swap size, and the swap 8200 hex code I chose 8GiB

-Creating root partition, either separate /home or add it to root. Personally, I have home separate other options is to separate /var/www which will be your server. Noticed how I used /var/www instead of /var. That is because /var is needed by logs, kernels, etc and have it seperate can cause issues booting. If you want a separate root then anywhere from 15-32gb should be sufficient.

Separate root
if not separate root
Then other partitions if wanted needed. I hope this helps.