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Re: [LUG] Formatting external drives etc

 

Rob Beard wrote:
On 08/04/11 17:45, Neil Winchurst wrote:
I have a USB memory stick and may one day need an external hard drive.
When bought how will they be formatted? And if I would like them to be
formatted to eg EXT4 what would be the best utility to use?

Thanks for any help

Neil


They will most likely be formatted to FAT32.

Personally I tend to leave my USB sticks in FAT32 format, that way I can
transfer them between my notebook, my XBOX360, PS3 and the wifes's PC.

Two points. All the computers at home are Linux so I have no need of Windows at all. Secondly, I thought that with FAT32 you lose permissions. Is that correct?


If I do format anything though (my external USB hard drive is EXT4
format) I use mkfs.ext4 in the command line.

I also tend to change the partition type from 6 (or b or c I believe)
which are Windows types to type 83 which is set to Linux.

I must have a look at this, which is new to me. Wouldn't formatting to say EXT4 automatically change the partition type too?


Not knowing if there is a graphical tool available to format drives
(other than GParted which is possibly a bit overkill) there is this...

http://cha-wares.blogspot.com/

I will have a look.

Mind you, I haven't tried it, it's what I found on Google. Other
applications may exist that do the job better.

Rob

Thanks for all that

Neil

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