Ext3 or vFat formatting in XP?

Goodshape

The scenario is that I've got a new 200gb external harddrive which I want to format for use with linux.. however, I don't have linux installed on this machine and have to do the formatting in WinXP.

The default tools in XP won't let me format in anything but NTFS, which is no good for Linux.

Anyone know a way around this? Ideally I want to be able to format (and read/write) the drive as either Ext3 or vFat filesystem.

possible?

ARGINITE

partition magic or some other tool like it!

Ste-

Format it to anything, Linux will then let you overwrite the whole partition to what ever filesystem you like.

Goodshape

Arginite - I'll have a look for it, cheers.

Ste - I plan on putting some files on there.. will overwriting the partition not overwrite the files also?

Stark

Just a note, if you format the partition to ext3, you won't be able to read it in XP.

Rew

What exactly do you wnat to do? They only partion type you can use that both Linux and Windows will read and write is FAT32 (there is NTFS support out there but it was flaky last I checked). FAT32 will limit your partiton size to 32 GB and file sixe to 4GB.

Iv never heard of anything that can format a partition EXT3 under Win. PMagic may be able to create partitons but I dont know if it can format them all though I could be wrong.

Goodshape

The HDD is a present for a linux-user. I want to format the entire thing and put some files on there before I give it to them.

32GB Fat32 is way out of the question (its a 200GB drive!). Ext3 sounds like it won't be writable.. so what about vFat?

I like it better when these things just work, y'know?

SkepticOne

Goodshape wrote:

The HDD is a present for a linux-user. I want to format the entire thing and put some files on there before I give it to them.

32GB Fat32 is way out of the question (its a 200GB drive!). Ext3 sounds like it won't be writable.. so what about vFat?

I like it better when these things just work, y'know?

If you can't get partion magic or a suitable tool, then you could always boot from a small floppy or cd based distro and format the drive from there. Ask on the Linux forum for details. Doing it this way may help with transferring the files onto the partition too.

MrPinK

Formatting it will be easy, but I don't know any way of writing to Ext3 from windows. You could always use a CD bootable distro of linux like Knoppix to copy the stuff over.

Capt'n Midnight

Can somepost up a link to an EXT3 reader for XP ?

if the drive is FAT32 then Knoppix is yer only man - you can do a poor mans install , CDimage / swap file / home file / loadlin.exe all can sit on FAT32 - no partitioning needed.

otherwise you can use ntfsresize to free up some space and then do a std linux install in the gap.

The linux use will be able to read NTFS fairly easily - so they could copy the files and they would then have the pleasure of nuking the NTFS partition

ressem

ext3 reader
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/ext2ifs.htm
reiser reader
http://p-nand-q.com/e/reiserfs.html
ext2 reader/writer
http://www.it.fht-esslingen.de/~zimmerma/software/ltools.html

But I'd go with the 32GB Fat32 partition, and let the linux installer do it's stuff with the rest. The user is probably going to want a swap partition, and usually /home and /usr/local will be on partitions of their own.

Stark

I thought FAT32 supported drive sizes up to 2TB?

FAT16 had a 2GB limit with 32KB cluster sizes. There were also 8GB and 160GB BIOS imposed limitations.

Rew

XP can only format FAT32 up to 32GB, its an OS limitation...

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=27253&DisplayTab=Article

Theres a MS page that says the same thing but i cannt find it.

You can use the WinME version of FDISK and Format to create a full size FAT32 partition, just once you don't mind 32kb clusters and waiting ages for the format to complete.

I think the Windows 98SE version has a bug with disks over 80GB.

Goodshape

Thanks for the all the info... problem is I've got a bit over a hundred gigs of stuff to put on the disc, so the 32gb FAT32 option falls a bit short.

Think I'm going to try for either Ext2 using the above mentioned reader/writer or a great big Fat32 partition.

Wish I still had my WinME disc.. little did I know that digital abortion might one day serve a purpose.