Ok, Betty. You're on.

betty wrote:
> those with little patience read no further.
> 
> Help please, i am trying to find the correct (and easy) way to format 
> and partition an external 160 GB hdd that i want to use to store backups 
> of data on my linux machine and my m$ machine.

That's a good idea.

> I would like to have about 100 GB FAT32 and 60GB ext3.

Sounds reasonable.

> for some reason when i run the hardware browser, this drive is called 
> SDB1 not hdd?? but whatever.

That's because hd? devices are IDE. Other devices use SCSI emulation, 
hence the SD? name. SDB1 would be the first partition on the second (B) 
SD device. It appears that your drive already has a partition on it.

> I am thinking that i need to do something like
> 
> Fdisk /dev/sdb1

To create your partitions, try
# fdisk /dev/sdb

That should get you into fdisk on your new drive.

Once you're there, it's a good thing to do the 'm' command to see what 
commands are available, then do the 'p' command to see what partitions 
are on the drive. If you want to remove the existing partition, use the 
'd' command. Then use the 'n' command to create each new partition. The 
partition type code for Linux is '83', and the partition type code for 
fat32 is 'c'. When you have them defined, use the 'w' command to commit 
your changes and exit fdisk.

> mke3fs /dev/sdb1

Not exactly. You want to use the mkfs command to make (format) the 
filesystems:

# mkfs -t vfat -c -L myfat32 /dev/sdb1
# mkfs -t ext3 -c -L mylinux /dev/sdb2

providing that the first partition is fat32 and the second is linux. Use 
the appropriate number for how you created the partitions.

The -c option checks for bad blocks. It makes the command run longer, 
but is generally a good idea.

The -L option specifies the volume (filesystem) label, and can be 
anything you like up to 11 characters, and avoid special characters.

> 
> how do i make a fat32 partition?

Using fdisk, see above.

> where do i write the numbers of the beginning and ending sectors?

Using fdisk, when you create the partition.

> do i have to name the two partitions?

No, but giving them a label can be helpful with identifying them. Also, 
you can use the LABEL= parameter in /etc/fstab so you don't need to 
specify the /dev/sd?? name there.

> can i just pretend it's a floppy and use the gui?? haha. just kidding.
> i did get parted but it is way beyond my ability to figure out so i 
> thought i'd give one last attempt by asking here, if it's still too 
> beyond me then i'll just use ghost and use it only for m$, what a waste.
> but if you think that that is the best thing to do , i can handle that, 
> let me know.
> 
> help help.
> thanks again, did i mention that your response, if any, needs to be easy 
> to understand??? thanks for hand-holding.
> i'm always available for any canine problems you have.

If you get stuck, let us know.

-- 
-Eric 'shubes'
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