Formatting USB Drive

[Alex Mandel]

Steven Heimann wrote:
> I have an approx 200GB drive in an external USB enclosure attached to a
> box running Breezy Badger.
> 
> I decided to reformat the drive (get rid of that big ugly NTFS
> partition) and back up all my current data before I give the beta of
> Dapper Drake a go.
> 
> I have a problem where the formatting process seems to freeze part way
> through.  I have tied this a number of times with and without bad block
> checking.
> 
> The problem seems to be that for some reason the USB mounting mechanism,
> which I don't understand, decides to move the partition somewhere else
> part way through the procedure.  
> 
> For example I was just trying the following command (while I had my
> breakfast) :
> 
> sudo mkfs.ext3 -cv -L usbdisk2 /dev/sdc1
> 
> It ran until it got to:
> 
> Checking for bad blocks (read-only test): 595596/ 61277926
> 
> and then froze.  I ran:
> 
> cat /etc/partitions
> 
> and this now shows:
> 
>   22     0  195360984 hdc
>   22     1  151549146 hdc1
>   22     2          1 hdc2
>   22     3   19462747 hdc3
>   22     4   22346415 hdc4
>   22     5    2000061 hdc5
>  253     0  151549146 dm-0
>  253     1   19462747 dm-1
>  253     2   22346415 dm-2
>  253     3    2000061 dm-3
>  253     4   20482843 dm-4
>  253     5  224130847 dm-5
>  253     6     497983 dm-6
>    8    48  245117376 sdd
>    8    49  245111706 sdd1
> 
> 
> i.e. the external drive has suddenly moved from sdc1 to sdd1.
> 
> Can anyone tell me how to get around this problem?
> 
> Thank you and regards
> Steven
> 
> 
In my use of Partitioning tools(Gparted, QTParted) you need to make sure 
the drive you want to work with is not mounted.  At least this has been 
my experience with Live disks.

I'm not sure how this differs from what you actually tried. But another 
suggestion would be to clear the drive completely of any partitions 
before you try to put a new one on. NTFS can be a real pain.

Alex