[CS-FSLUG] Hard drive won't format - or maybe stay formatted.

[Tim Young]

  Hi there,
fdisk does not format a drive, it only partitions it.
Before you can mount it, you need to use mke2fs to format the drive
man mke2fs

the command will be:
mke2fs -j /dev/sda1

The "p" option at the end says that the partition is prepared to be a 
linux filesystem, but it does not mean that the partition has been 
formatted as such.

     - Tim

On 8/7/2010 1:17 AM, davidm at hisfeet.net wrote:
> Below (marked by: ****++++****++++) is the procedure that I went through,
> working from Puppy 5 in the CDrom. As you can see at the end the disk does
> seem to be properly formatted as ext3 /dev/sda1.  But I could not mount
> the disk.  When I tried I got a message that said I must identify the type
> of disk, SI tried that, and got the message that it could not mount
> because it could not be found in fstab or mtab.  Working in puppu I
> couldn't figure out how to find fstab or modify it. The structure seems
> quite different.
>
> I checked with gparted to see how it saw the disk, and it identified it as
> sda1, but unknown file type, and only 232 GiB in size. I did not attempt
> to modify it in gparted.
>
> Then I rebooted and checked it with fdisk -l again, and it appeared to
> have retained it's format. But I still could not mount it.  I did find
> fstab and entered a line for sda1: " /dev/sda1  /mnt/sda1  ext2,ext3
> noauto  0  0 " and a dir as /mnt/sda1 but still could not mount, even
> after another reboot.
>
> Here is the message I got, together with the dmesg | tail:
> # ls
> cdrom  data  dvd  flash  floppy  home  msdos  ram1  sda1  swap  zip
> # mount /mnt/sda1
> mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1,
>         missing codepage or other error
>         In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
>         dmesg | tail  or so
>
> # dmesg | tail
> mac80211-phy0: failed to remove key (0, 00:24:7b:62:86:e2) from hardware
> (-22)
> wlan0: direct probe to AP 00:24:7b:62:86:e2 (try 1)
> wlan0: direct probe responded
> wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:24:7b:62:86:e2 (try 1)
> wlan0: authenticated
> wlan0: associate with AP 00:24:7b:62:86:e2 (try 1)
> wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:24:7b:62:86:e2 (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=1)
> wlan0: associated
> EXT2-fs (sda1): error: can't find an ext2 filesystem on dev sda1.
> EXT3-fs (sda1): error: can't find ext3 filesystem on dev sda1.
> #
> So it appears that in spite of the last few lines on this page that the
> format may not be recognizable.
>
>
>
> ****++++****++++
> # fdisk -l
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
> Disk /dev/sda doesn't contain a valid partition table
> # fdisk /dev/sda
> Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF
> disklabel
> Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
> until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
> content won't be recoverable.
>
>
> The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 30401.
> There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
> and could in certain setups cause problems with:
> 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
> 2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
>     (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
> Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by
> w(rite)
>
> ******************8
>
> Command (m for help): W
> The partition table has been altered!
>
> Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
> Syncing disks.
> # p
> bash: p: command not found
> # fdisk /dev/sda
>
> The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 30401.
> There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
> and could in certain setups cause problems with:
> 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
> 2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
>     (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
>
> Command (m for help): p
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
>     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
>
> **********************************
> Command (m for help): n
> Command action
>     e   extended
>     p   primary partition (1-4)
> p
> Partition number (1-4): 1
> First cylinder (1-30401, default 1):
> Using default value 1
> Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-30401, default 30401):
> Using default value 30401
>
> Command (m for help): p
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
>     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1               1       30401   244196001   83  Linux
>
> Command (m for help): W
> The partition table has been altered!
>
> Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
> Syncing disks.
> # p
> bash: p: command not found
> # fdisk /dev/sda
>
> The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 30401.
> There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
> and could in certain setups cause problems with:
> 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
> 2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
>     (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
>
> Command (m for help): p
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
>     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1               1       30401   244196001   83  Linux
>
>
>
>
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