hard drive format
 

Hi very new to linux was wondering what the best format would be for partitioning a new hard drive as NTFS is incompatible

using your "live cd " with your choice of lnx on it,
use Gparted to format to ext3.

Just about any lnx O/S has this program on it.
- it is part of the install process that the installer will use,
& can be done automatically within the install to get rid of the NTFS partition.

Any Linux installer will take care of partitioning and formatting the disk

this wont create another installation? i already have debian installed on another hard drive for my os

OK--we misunderstood!!

You mean what is the best filesystem to use? I'm guessing that your Debian uses ext3, so why not stick with that?

For shared data in a Windows dual-boot, you can use FAT32.

Tell us more about what you are doing, and we can give you better help.

thats great help .am going to do first option as my windows vista is too slow can i do this through the terminal

True - you do need to give us ALL the story - not just part of your situation. :)

From a terminal, you can use fdisk or cfdisk for partitioning, and mkfs for creating filesystems (AKA "formatting") See the man pages for the syntax, options, etc.

But----tell us what you are doing!!

Installed a new hard drive into my system a week ago when still on vista and now cant access the info on it. The debian install was done on a much smaller capacity IDE drive so i could see what the os was like. As i have now made the decision to switch to linux was wondering how i can go about formating the new drive as i already have os installed.

If you no longer want Vista - then install & erase over the Vista partition with your new O/S.
Otherwise - resize the current debian partition & install to the new space with the fresh install's partition.
If you have nothing special to keep - data-wise - then use the new install to zap the main drive & remove the 2nd drive from the box.

If so, then use the opportunity to create a separate /home partition for your <eventual> data files that you will get / create, which can then be easily backed up.

Wait!! OP says he has data on the new drive.

ansated*; If you want to read/copy what's on the drive, then don't format it!!

Otherwise, did you look into the tools I suggested?

Thanx guys appreciate the help am currently in the process of backing up the data to an external FAT32 so i don't loose anything + can transfer data over. going to use the IDE drive for the operating system as Debian is already installed and working . It's just a case of formating the new sata 1.3TB drive which i will look at in terminal man. thanx

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplan...orials/4232/2/ good website

ansatedmemninja:/home/benjamin# fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 1500.3 GB, 1500301910016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000a7891

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 182401 1465136001 83 Linux

ansatedmemninja:/home/benjamin# mkdir /mnt/sda1

ansatedmemninja:/home/benjamin# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1

Thankyou (this is for sata drive)

chmod ugo+r sda1(directory) = change folder permissions

http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/fstab.html = automated device mounting info: