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-   -   formatting issues with qtparted in knoppix (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/formatting-issues-with-qtparted-in-knoppix-371642/)

matttail 10-10-2005 04:04 PM

formatting issues with qtparted in knoppix
 
Ok, so I've got a 40 gig hd hooked up to my computer. I need to format it and then copy files onto it to use as a backup drive as my windws installaiton died. I used qtparted to clear out the previous partition onthe HD, and then asked it for format it in ext3. That all went just swell, but it says that there is 2.33 gig used... but I just formated - it should be empty!

So, I asked qtparted to format it into fat32... and this time only 32mb was used.

But I'd rather just use a linux format so there's less work converting between file systems... does that make sense?

I was going to try using format from the command line, but that says command not found. So, pleaese help me, what is the best way to go about accomplish my task of formatting the HD, and how should I do it? I'm not a total n00b with linux but I'm not any kid of expirenced user either. Thanks :)

(Oh, and I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I did search and I couldn't find anything)

--MattTail

michaelk 10-10-2005 04:40 PM

By default when a ext2/ext3 filesystem is created 5% is reserved for root. This is supposed to reduce fragementation as well as allow root to login in case the filesystem becomes full. You can change the amount of reserved space via tune2fs utility or mke2fs command.

The format utility in linux is the mkfs command. In any case you can use any linux filesystem. However, not all filesystems are support with all distributions out of the box.

matttail 10-10-2005 06:04 PM

OK, so I used mke2fs -m 0 /dev/hdb1 and it worked on that, and now I've got my partition formated in ext3 and now extra space seem to be taken up - was that right?

EDIT: it's actually ext2 - does that make a difference?

I've got an other issue now though, when I try to write files to the hd I get permission denied. I'm still running knoppix here, and by default partitions are mounted without rear-write access. But this is supposed to be easy to get around. I just right click on the icon on the desktop for the partiton, click mount, and the right click again and change permission to read-write. I click ok on the confirm box, but I'm sitll un-able to write files.

I tried both copying files from my NTFS partition, as well as just trying to create a folder - the same response permission denyed.

Any ideas?

michaelk 10-10-2005 06:23 PM

You only created an ext2 filesystem. The -j option creates the journal.

Make sure the filesystem is not mounted prior to selecting read/write mode.

matttail 10-10-2005 06:24 PM

ahh, the right click menu doesn't work (at least in my version)

I got into a shell, su to root and then did mount -o remount,rw /mnt/hdb1 and now I can write to it.

yay!

Thanks!


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