Trying to get an older harddrive to be useful

[Freddie1984]

I have just added an extra hard drive to my computer i am running ubuntu 8.04 and the hard drive which i just added came from a computer which was running xp how would i be able to get the hard drive to mount for storage purposes only. All i would like to do is completely wipe it out. Thank you for your help in advance

[patchwork]

Do you want it to auto mount or mount on-demand?

[Freddie1984]

I would like it to auto mount

[patchwork]

Make the mount point

sudo mkdir /media/Storage #or any other suitable name

find the location of your drive

sudo fdisk -l

Edit your /etc/fstab

gksu gedit /etc/fstab

Add the location of your drive to your fstab. An example-


/dev/sdb7 /media/Storage_Or_other_name ext3 defaults 0 2

Obviously, if you want to format the drive as ext4, you would enter that instead of ext3


Mount the drive

mount /dev/drive_designation /media/Storage #or other suitable name

Then run the gparted utility and format the drive to the desired format.

[Freddie1984]

i did what you said and it all seemed to be going on the right track but the issue is that it still has all the original guts of the xp which it was used for prior sorry for the hassle but this will be the first time i have tried this on my linux box this is what it is displaying after i try to find the location

Disk /dev/sda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc6b2c6b2

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 4660 37431418+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 4661 4865 1646662+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 4661 4865 1646631 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf584f584

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 4865 39078081 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdc: 4043 MB, 4043309056 bytes
125 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1018 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 7750 * 512 = 3968000 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6f20736b

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 ? 100405 247697 570754815+ 72 Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(357, 116, 40) logical=(100404, 79, 11)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 45) logical=(247696, 24, 51)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc2 ? 21767 271577 968014120 65 Novell Netware 386
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(288, 115, 43) logical=(21766, 48, 47)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(367, 114, 50) logical=(271576, 60, 42)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc3 ? 241276 491086 968014096 79 Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(366, 32, 33) logical=(241275, 3, 30)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 43) logical=(491085, 14, 39)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdc4 ? 372346 372354 27749+ d Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(372, 97, 50) logical=(372345, 119, 25)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(0, 10, 0) logical=(372353, 14, 33)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdd: 2000 MB, 2000748032 bytes
64 heads, 63 sectors/track, 969 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 = 2064384 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 969 1953439+ 6 FAT16

[dcstar]

i did what you said and it all seemed to be going on the right track but the issue is that it still has all the original guts of the xp which it was used for prior sorry for the hassle but this will be the first time i have tried this on my linux box this is what it is displaying after i try to find the location
........

Use the Partition Manager to write a new partition table to the drive.

Use the Partition Manager to create and format a partition on the drive.

Install the pysdm package and use that to mount the new partition to somewhere on your system so you can use it (I would suggest /Storage as a mount point).

[Barriehie]

i did what you said and it all seemed to be going on the right track but the issue is that it still has all the original guts of the xp which it was used for prior sorry for the hassle but this will be the first time i have tried this on my linux box this is what it is displaying after i try to find the location

...muted...
/dev/sdb1 * 1 4865 39078081 7 HPFS/NTFS
...muted...

Looks like it's /dev/sdb1 Is 40 Gbytes right for the size?

[patchwork]

It looks like you're booting linux from sda1, windows from sdb1, is that novell on sdc? and a 2gb windows drive on sdd1.

I'm guessing the 2gb windows is the drive you want to use as storage?

sudo mkdir /media/Storage && sudo mount /dev/sdd1 /media/Storage

Then format the partition sdd1 to whatever you wish (ext3 is good and stable for linux, fat is good for linux and windows) using Gparted (System > Administration > Gparted )

and modify your fstab to include

/dev/sdd1 /media/Storage (format_type_you_chose) defaults 0 2

[Freddie1984]

when i noticed what you guys were looking at i noticed it was picking up my flash drives this is the information minus the flashdrive

Disk /dev/sda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc6b2c6b2

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 4660 37431418+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 4661 4865 1646662+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 4661 4865 1646631 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf584f584

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 4865 39078081 7 HPFS/NTFS


and yes the hard drive is 40 gb so the address for the hard drive that i am trying to mount would be ?????

thanks for all the patience

[patchwork]

/dev/sdb1