You don't really format hard drives, you format partitions (unless you're talking about a low-level format, which I doubt). The first thing you have to do is look at the partition table: [root@orinoco root]# fdisk -l /dev/hda Disk /dev/hda: 4099 MB, 4099866624 bytes 128 heads, 63 sectors/track, 993 cylinders Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 = 4128768 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 163 657184+ 6 FAT16 /dev/hda2 164 169 24192 83 Linux /dev/hda3 170 186 68544 82 Linux swap /dev/hda4 187 993 3253824 83 Linux You will see something similar, though not exactly the same as that. If I wanted to format my FAT16 (Windows) partition, I would type: [root@orinoco root]# mkfs.msdos /dev/hda1 It would take it a few seconds to format the partition. If I wanted to format my swap partition for some reason, I would type: [root@orinoco root]# swapoff -a ; mkswap /dev/hda2 ; swapon -a Which would disable the swap, format it, then re-enable it. Fedora uses volume labels to identify a linux partition's mount-point. To see what the mount point of 'hda2' is, you would type: [root@orinoco root]# e2label /dev/hda2 In my case, it would print '/boot'. You can actually format this one with linux running, though I'm not sure why you would want to. Do so by typing: [root@orinoco root]# umount /boot ; mkfs.ext3 /dev/hda2 It would format your boot partition and render your system unbootable in seconds. Now, if I was to type: [root@orinoco root]# e2label /dev/hda4 I would see that 'hda4' is my root (/) partition. I can't really format this while linux is running, although it would probably let me do it anyway. What I would do is boot from the Fedora CD in rescue mode or from my helix CD and type: [root@orinoco root]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/hda4 And that would format my root partition... Now, in case you really did want to low-level format your drive, I'll just go ahead and tell you how to do that. I haven't done this in a long time, so it might not be 100% right. I'm pretty sure it will work, though: [root@orinoco root]# fdisk -l /dev/hda Disk /dev/hda: 4099 MB, 4099866624 bytes 128 heads, 63 sectors/track, 993 cylinders Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 = 4128768 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 1 163 657184+ 6 FAT16 /dev/hda2 164 169 24192 83 Linux /dev/hda3 170 186 68544 82 Linux swap /dev/hda4 187 993 3253824 83 Linux It says that my drive is 4099 MB, so I'll use this in my next command. [root@orinoco root]# dd if=/dev/zero bs=1024k blocks=4099 of=/dev/hda That will write zeroes to the whole drive. It might miss a few bytes at the end, but I don't think so or even think it would matter. It will wipe out your entire drive including the partition table. I don't really suggest doing it, though. The real answer, btw, probably should have been "Why would you want to?" Have fun. jack Garcia said: > Hi! > > I need to format the hard drive. I know how to do that in Windows. I don't > know how to do it in Linux. I'm using Fedora 9. > > Thanks > jackservant@xxxxxxx -- > fedora-list mailing list > fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list >
