Sidux/Useable applications/External drive

Mounting

An external drive such as PenDrive, FlashDrive or External Hard Drive has "fat32" file system.

It has to be mounted automatically on Desktop so you don't need to do anything with that.

If an external drive doesn't want to mount itself, you can do it in Terminal: Sidux/Post-installation work/Mounting Partitions

To unmount it choose from mouse menu: Unmount or do it in Terminal:

umount /dev/partition_number

If you want to format an external drive, do it in one of two ways: using GParted or fdisk and mkfs.

GParted is an application with graphical GUI so you can do it easy.

1. Connect a drive to an USB port.

2. Run GParted (as root): Menu-> System-> GParted

3. The application will display hard drive partitions as first "/dev/sda".

then change disk drive choosing "/dev/sdb" on top right corner.

4. If the partition is locked (key icon), mark it and choose from mouse menu: Unmount.

5. Next choose: Format to "fat32".

and-> Apply

6. If everything goes ok you will get message: All operations successfully completed, then-> Close.

1. If you prefer to format a drive in Terminal, first check all connected drives as root:

su
fdisk -l

a. "/dev/sda_number" is an hard drive partition.

b. "/dev/sdb_number" is an external drive partition.

2. You can remove a partition and create new one first if you want:

fdisk /dev/sdb

a. to remove partition type: "d"

b. to create new partition type: "n"

c. choose new partition type: primary "p" or extended "e"

d. type partition number: 1 to 4 for primary and from 5 for extended

e. type the first and the last cylinder number

f. choose file system type; "l" for list displaying, "b" for "vfat" type

g. write table to disk and exit: "w"

3. You can format a partition without creating new partition or after that:

mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1

It'll make "vfat" file system on "/dev/sdb1" partition".