Comments on: Formatting USB hard drives for Ubuntu (Gutsy Gibbon)

By: Srijith

Srijith — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:22:08 +0000

Here is a command line method to format a usb in linux http://blog.sriunplugged.com/linux/how-to-format-a-usb-in-linux/

By: Phil Gomes

Phil Gomes — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:54:17 +0000

This was immensely helpful. Thanks.

By: Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:12:43 +0000

John, if you’ve got 800 gigs of documents, you really should get another hard drive, at least to back all that stuff up. You’re just one hard drive failure away from some really unhappy times..

By: John/wiggums

John/wiggums — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:21:13 +0000

Matt, on a similar note: I recently went to Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala from XP, and I have a 1TB Western Digital external formatted with NTFS. my problem is, I cannot edit/move some of my files because NTFS and Linux do not play nice, at least that is what I have been hearing on the forums I have been looking at…my real problem is, I do not have another HD to put my 800 gigs of Music/Movies/pictures/documents/installers on in order to format to ext2/3 etc. any pointers/tips on how to fix this?

-Thank you in advance,

-wiggums

By: Rick Blackmon

Rick Blackmon — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:28:45 +0000

I have just gone through the process of launching a reviews and guides website. I read and wrote reviews on over 50 usb portable drives including several about the necessity of backup. I have 2 Seagate USB portable drives on my system and yes, my Cand D drives are backed up. I am ashamed to say the backup is at least 6 months old. I need to practice what I preach. I am thinking of either getting a Seagate Free Agent Xtreme or a Western Digital MyBook Mirror. Incase you aren't familiar with teh WD Mirror, it contains 2 drives. You can either configure them in RAID 0 and have 1 humongous drive or RAID 1 and have an auto backed up drive. Right now, I am leaning toward the WD MyBook Mirror. Any thoughts?

By: Harrison Napper

Harrison Napper — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:55:28 +0000

Ditto on the Ubuntu appreciation. Kind of late to the party, I realize, but for what it’s worth, I run Ubuntu Studio 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) and I believe GParted comes standard with the OS in the Admin tools. As a Linux n00b, I can attest to the fact that Ubuntu is pretty easy for non-coders (though I do know how to program a little bit, if I didn’t, I would still be fine with a little effort and ingenuity) and this tutorial is still applicable on 9.04. One difference being, of course, that most of the command line work can be bypassed for the GUI if you prefer that route. If you are going to run a production studio environment, formatting your external hard-drives is essentially a must. Thanks and keep up the informative posts!

Regards,
Harrison

By: JOrdUbU

JOrdUbU — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 12:12:22 +0000

All right guys,

This is what i did and it works

I have an Iomega external Hard Drive (HD USB) 250 GB
I downloaded “GPARTED” then it identified my Iomega HD
Then I rightcliced it and UNMOUNT it That’s necessary for the formatting
Finally rightcliced again and select format to FAT32 that’s the needed one format
This FAT32 allow you to write and read it.

And it works with Ubuntu and
Windows and I supose to MAc OS X too
So that is it
Remember to make a BACK UP first with DVDS or another Computer or HD

By: Dr Kayak

Dr Kayak — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 04:20:42 +0000

Thank you so much for the concise instructions on how to format my WD external hard drive. After a day of frustration dealing with ‘puter issues, including trying to understand why I couldn’t copy any files bigger than 4G to the WD disk, it was like a breath of fresh air to find something that worked, first try!

By: Rogu

Rogu — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:06:03 +0000

At first, thank you Matt for the tips!

However, I report that after formatting the USB drive to ext3, naming and sdparming it, I wasn’t able to boot anymore. What I got was just error 15 in grub. And I’m 100% sure that I did not touch any other devices than the Seagate USB drive while performing these steps. The Ubuntu version I use is 8.04.

I have followed these advices to solve the problem. Basically just for fun since my plan was to install Ubuntu 8.10 after taking backups. And luckily, I took full backup before shutting down the machine yesterday night.

But in any case, it would be nice to understand what happened.

By: John Leeper

John Leeper — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:41:05 +0000

Christian is right. I can’t make new folders etc because owner is root. How do I change owner so I can set permissions. Will I be able to use this same portable hard drive on different computers? Thanks.