Yesterday I showed you how to format a hard drive using FDisk but a lot of people are not comfortable using the command line so today I will show you how to use GParted – which uses a GUI.
For the purpose of this tutorial I will be using GParted on Ubuntu 12.04 and formatting a 131Mb USB penstick (remember those!!) with ntfs. GParted is not installed by default on most Linux distributions so either download and install it using your package manager or open up a terminal and type:
sudo apt-get install gparted
Type your password when prompted. When you open up GParted you should get a screenshot similar to the one below.
First thing we need to check is that the hard drive is not mounted so highlight it, right click and go to unmount.
Now we need to clear any existing partitions on the hard drive so again highlight the drive and click on Delete the selected partition (shown below).
Now it is time to make a new partition so click on Partition and then New.
For the purpose of this tutorial I will be using the whole device and changing File System to ntfs. When you are happy click Add. You will then be asked to confirm your selection.
All that is left to do is apply the operation so click on Apply All Operations (shown below)
GParted will now format the hard drive and install the ntfs file system on it.
About the Author
Hi I’m Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows, Mac and Linux based IT Support to small businesses in Stirling, Alloa and Falkirk.
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