Hi Guys:

I have got a question here: I have use Ubuntu Live CD to boot up my PC, and I have mount the local harddisk partition F: to \mnt\drive2.

Is there anyway I can format it to FAT?

Thanks ha

If you are running from live CD and you format one of your hard drive partitions, you will lose the data there.
How is it formatted now? eg Windows ntfs, FAT32, linux EXT....?

Have you tried mounting it?

Hi!

You could use mke2fs to create filesystems, look at the manpage.
example (j=journalling):
#mke2fs -j /dev/hda3

BUT it will format your existing (real) partition. it´s not a kind of "virtual" partition, in consideration of the fact you booted a liveCD

Well, I understand I will lose all the data, actually it is a linux partition, and I wanted to change it to FAT32. And currently I have no operation system on my harddisk, and to make things worse, I can't install a system onto the harddisk due to some reason. So I come to the point that I should use a Live CD to format that partition.

So may I know what should I do :P

Several things need to be aware

(1) In formatting a partition you should not mount it. The formatting should be done with a block device. Normal syntax to format partition hda1 in Fat32 is
(2) If you intend to install a Linux you need at least one partition created in native Linux Type 83. Also a swap partition Type 82 is also needed to complete a Linux installation. Thereafter you just instruct a Linux installer to install itself in the partition specified by you. Most Linux will not accept Fat32 partition for installation.

(3) There is no technical reason why a hard disk cannot accept an installation of an operating system unless you have a Sata disk and the chosen system does not support it unless a driver is available or the kernel has been compiled to accept the Sata disk.