Ubuntu
gparted package

Reformatting second drive

Asked by Rodney

I have Ubuntu 8.10 installed on an older system. I've added a second hard drive with it programmed (jumper placement) for slave. Now when I go to Places>Computer it shows up but I can not mount it or do anything with it. When I install the live CD and use Gparted, I get this info
/dev/sdb1 /dev/sdb5
16.91GB 18.38GB

/dev/sdb1 ntfs 16.91GB used 6.33GB unused 10.58 GB boot
/dev/sdb3 ntfs 1.46 GB 499.96MB 998.28MB
/dev/sdb4 ntfs 1.52GB 520.94MB 1.02GB
/dev/sdb2 extended 18.38GB -- --lba
/dev/sdb5 ntfs 18.38GB 8.88GB 9.50GB
unallocated 7.84MB

Now. my question is this: how should I partition this disk and what should I format the partitions to in order to use it
as a place to store anything I want, just as if it were a floppy or thumb drive?
Next how do I mount it so that I can access it?
Here are the result os sudu fdisk -l
george@george-desktop:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for george:

Disk /dev/sda: 20.4 GB, 20491075584 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2491 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000e0651

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2382 19133383+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 2383 2491 875542+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 2383 2491 875511 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 41.1 GB, 41110142976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4998 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x4e914e91

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 2208 17735728+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 2599 4997 19269967+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb3 2209 2399 1534207+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb4 2400 2598 1598467+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb5 2599 4997 19269936 7 HPFS/NTFS

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdc: 2013 MB, 2013265920 bytes
129 heads, 32 sectors/track, 952 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4128 * 512 = 2113536 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 952 1964912 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 1 1 0+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order
george@george-desktop:~$

Thank you

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actionparsnip
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Revision history for this message
Best actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

If its for storage then you could use it as one big partition, or you could split it up and use each partition for a different type of data (Music, Image etc).

Run:

gksudo gparted

and you can edit the disk as you wish

Revision history for this message
Rodney (rciwan) said : 		#2

Thanks, I reformatted to ext3 and can now mount the disk. I'm still having troubles writing to it but will close this question out as solved and then, if I can not find the answers I need, I'll ask another more specific question. Thanks again.

Revision history for this message
Rodney (rciwan) said : 		#3

Thanks actionparsnip, that solved my question.

Revision history for this message
Robert Benjamin (benjie1) said : 		#4

Have a 2.0 G Sony external thumb drive which I can't access. It was working yesterday and appeared on the desktop automatically. Not is says "Unable to mount 2.0 GB Filesystem. Not authorized. Tks. Newbie here too.

Revision history for this message
marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#5

@ Robert Benjamin please do your own question from here: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+addquestion