what program do I use in ubuntu to format a drive

[mike]

Hi, I have been playing with the USB creator that comes with intrepid. You have to run it from root to get Orca to speak, but it works well.
My question is, it boots very slow. Would it boot faster if I made a Linux partition and installed to that instead? I see the gnome partition editor, but I'm not sure which one to pick. I also have never tried to format a drive in Linux. Which program does this?
I thought the partition editor would format the partition, but it only created it. Unless there is a option I am missing.
Anyway, the usb creator does work well.
Mike.