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Re: Formatting an unused partition



Hi,

Actually, I'm in the same position myself, somehow I missed creating a /home partition during install, and only recently discovered an 18GB black hole on my disk.

Is it safe to mkfs on a disk that already has active, used partitions? Or is there a risk that exiting partitions could get wiped (yeah I know, backup)? The mkfs and mkfs.ext3 man pages don't say anything about this.

I'm betting that it's probably safe, but haven't been able to get up the nerve to go for it.

/icebiker

----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Jones" <Steven.Jones@vuw.ac.nz>
To: <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 19:14
Subject: RE: Formatting an unused partition


Then if you are confident its unused make a new filesystem, mount it and use it.

regards

Steven

-----Original Message-----
From: [KS] [mailto:boneywasawarriorvayayix@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 20 October 2004 11:49 a.m.
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: RE: Formatting an unused partition


I'm top posting(to keep in line with the response),
but if that is not recommended do inform me.

No, the partition is not alread mounted. And as seen
in the copy of cfdisk partition list in my first
message, it does not show a partition type. Trying -t
auto for mounting gives:
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

And there are no software raid devices on my system.

Regards,
/KS
--- Steven Jones <Steven.Jones@vuw.ac.nz> wrote:

Do a df -h and look for hdb10 to make sure it is not
mounted/used.

The next stage depends on how paranoid you are, at
this point if you are confident its unused you can
make a file system on it. If not mount it and go see
if amything is in it.

regards

Steven

-----Original Message-----
From: [KS]
[mailto:boneywasawarriorvayayix@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 20 October 2004 10:24 a.m.
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Formatting an unused partition


Bonjour tous,

I have two HDDs (40+80G). The smaller one (/dev/hda)
has WinXP on it(hardly used), and bigger one
(/dev/hdb) has Debian Sid installed. I was checking
free space on /dev/hdb and by chance summed up all
the
partition sizes. I was surprised to see that the sum
was considerably less than 80GB(I didn't even
remember
that it was there). I did a cat /proc/partitions and
it showed that there was an ~18GB partition
(/dev/hdb10). Then I checked with cfdisk and it
showed
the partion as  FS=Linux but no type.

What are the various options that I use to format
that
partion and use it? I did read about cfdisk but I
just
want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing as
it
is being done as root.

Thanks,
/KS

PS: The output of cfdisk is copied below:

Disk Drive: /dev/hdb
                        Size: 80026361856 bytes,
80.0
GB
              Heads: 255   Sectors per Track: 63
Cylinders: 9729

    Name        Flags      Part Type  FS Type

[Label]        Size (MB)


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    hdb1        Boot        Primary   Linux ext3

                  197.41
    hdb2                    Primary   Linux ext3

                 6999.72
    hdb3                    Primary   Linux ext3

                 1998.75
    hdb5                    Logical   Linux ext3

                 1998.75
    hdb6                    Logical   Linux swap

                 1003.49
    hdb7                    Logical   Linux ext3

                  501.75
    hdb8                    Logical   Linux ext3

                20003.89
    hdb9                    Logical   Linux ext3

                27003.60
    hdb10                   Logical   Linux

                20316.45






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