uname -r 2.6.17-5mdv

I have a USB HDD and i can see it attached to the usb bus, i look into in win xp and it has no formatting. How do i fix this under *nix, i can do it under win xp but i would like to migrate away from it.

this is the relevant output from
dmesg
usb 3-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 3-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usb-storage: device found at 3
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
Vendor: Maxtor 6 Model: L200P0 Rev: BAJ4
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
usb-storage: device scan complete
SCSI device sda: 398297088 512-byte hdwr sectors (203928 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 398297088 512-byte hdwr sectors (203928 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
sda: unknown partition table
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0


any more details needed don't hesitate to ask

not sure what you mean by "fix" but just use fdisk, cfdisk or any other suitable partitioning tool, e.g. "fdisk /dev/sda"

See for the details; http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Flash-Memory-HOWTO/index.html

Example: mke2fs /dev/sda1

I can see the drive i would like to format and partition the drive under linux, still in uni now so i'll have a look later on.
Thx in advance though, as i think this will sort out my troubles

For partitioning you have Qtparted as GUI. You will need to install it however.

Thanks for your help everyone, bottled it and formatted it in WinXP using the Fat32format.exe, this also avoids the artificial limit of 32gb/s that WinXP imposse's

dmess need to be interpreted in thou ways : the sda has no protection write so you may make it on:http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=406569
plz help back: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=508377