On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 04:01, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hello all, > I had a dual boot system with Windows and Linux > installed. Bought a new cd writer and found out I had to > upgrade win 98 to SE to use new software for writer. SE > costs more than the writer did. Nuts to microsoft. > Took Windows out and installed Debian Sarge with > the new installer. I really am happy with it. > My question is How do I reformat my second hard > drive that is presently Fat 32 windows so that Linux can > use it for backup. I tried cfdisk but linux cannot see the > drive. I have a Maxtor cd for the drive, which is Maxtor, > but there is no Linux formating available on it. I sent > them an e-mail asking why not. > Thanks in advance for any help. > Doug
That's very odd. fdisk or cfdisk can usually see a FAT drive (I've been messing around with multiple hard drives for yonks and never had a problem with 'seeing' them). Sorry to ask this but you are giving cfdisk the right address (as in "cfdisk /dev/hdb") I suppose? Umm, if you swapped drives around I suppose you did the right things with the drive select jumpers? (sorry to mention that but these things happen....) I've never found the make of drive to make any difference, and I've used Maxtor, Seagate, Fujitsu, Quantum, Western Digital... so I'm not sure what the Maxtor CD would have on it other than fairly generic formatting tools. I believe it's usually recommended to remove partitions using the software that created them - that is, using Windows FDISK to remove the partitions on the drive; then Linux fdisk/cfdisk to create new (and, I think, mke2fs to format them). Whether your old W98 CD (if you have one) will allow you to run FDISK without installing Windows, I have no idea. (Nor do I know whether W98 will even contemplate addressing anything other than the first-and-only partition in the machine :) If all this is elementary stuff you know already, my apologies. cr -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
