I'm trying to format an external USB hard drive...

djackson75 · 08-09-2008, 01:55 PM

And failing in epic fashion. I am using Mandriva, and am new to the whole linux thing. I like Mandriva better than Ubuntu though, that much I know.

Anyhow, I have a 500GB external USB hard drive, and Mandriva recognizes it, but I want to format the drive, and haven't figured out how to do it. Can anyone help me here??

Thank you in advance.

{BBI}Nexus{BBI} · 08-09-2008, 02:04 PM

Do: Alt & F2 now type mcc click run enter your root password. Go to Local disks--> Manage disk partitions click continue on the warning dialog box, now select the tab that corresponds to your external drive, now click the coloured bar below the tab and some options should appear.

** Please make sure you pay attention and select the correct drive!! **

djackson75 · 08-09-2008, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by {BBI}Nexus{BBI}

Do: Alt & F2 now type mcc click run enter your root password. Go to Local disks--> Manage disk partitions click continue on the warning dialog box, now select the tab that corresponds to your external drive, now click the coloured bar below the tab and some options should appear.

** Please make sure you pay attention and select the correct drive!! **

Thank you Nexus, that did the trick.... I have another question. The external that I'm using had a windows XP install on it in a 20gb partition. I was able to format the drive, and everything I had on the drive was gone(which is good)...except for the 20gb partition where xp was installed. I'd like to get rid of that partition completely, but can't find a way to do that... Any ideas?

{BBI}Nexus{BBI} · 08-09-2008, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djackson75

Thank you Nexus, that did the trick.... I have another question. The external that I'm using had a windows XP install on it in a 20gb partition. I was able to format the drive, and everything I had on the drive was gone(which is good)...except for the 20gb partition where xp was installed. I'd like to get rid of that partition completely, but can't find a way to do that... Any ideas?

Perhaps when you did the format you didn't adjust the slider to indicate you wanted to format the entire drive and not just the detected free space. Just do the format process again and adjust the slider to max when asked how much you want to use. Or remove the partition first and then re-format.