Thought I should try mkfs.ext3 from root after I posted my question - that worked. Thanks for the suggestion anyway.
Kerry On Mon, 2008-04-14 at 21:42 +1200, Steve Holdoway wrote: > dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1024 count=10 > > Should do it. Just make sure you get the right device (: > > Steve > > On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:25:46 +1200 > Kerry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I've recently put a new hard drive in my laptop and taken the old one > > and am using it as an external hard drive. Because it's from an Acer > > laptop it has a read only PQSERVICE partition used for backups. > > > > Now I would like to recover the 24 gigs of hd space this is taking up. > > I've tried to use GParted to re-format this space but get an blank error > > box coming up then a warning box stating: > > > > "At least one operation was applied to a busy device. > > > > A busy device is a device with at least one mounted partition. > > Because making changes to a busy device may confuse the kernel, you are > > advised to reboot your computer." > > > > I've done a bit of a google and have come up empty handed as to how to > > re-format this space > > > >
