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i had a windows 2003 server which i have recently converted to Fedora Core release 4

the install basically used the first hdd (as i told it to) and the remaining three hd's still had the original 'dynamic disc NTFS' format on them from Windows 2003 server.

I wanted to format all the other three hd's to Ext3 filesystem (for journalling) and to do so i had to first change the partition info from the SFS filesystem to LINUX

here's the output before i did anything

Quote:[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux

/dev/hda2 14 14593 117113850 8e Linux LVM

Disk /dev/hdb: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hdb1 * 1 14589 117186111 42 SFS

Disk /dev/hdc: 123.5 GB, 123522416640 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 15017 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hdc1 1 15017 120624021 42 SFS

Disk /dev/hdd: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hdd1 1 14589 117186111 42 SFS

so above, as you can see,. /dev/hda1 is already in linux format (actually it's a LVM logical volume manager format which Fedora Core defaults to) and i want to change the other three hd's from SFS (dynamic disks in windows 2003 server) to Ext3 linux.

first off, i need to re-partition the hard disc's one by one, so i started with /dev/hdb

login as root and do this

Code:
fdisk /dev/hdb

you will now be given some info like this

Quote:The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 14593.There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,

and could in certain setups cause problems with:

1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)

2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs

(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help):

now type the letter 't' as follows:-

Code:
Command (m for help): t

Selected partition 1

Hex code (type L to list codes):

and now tell it what filesystem you want (83=linux)

Code:
Hex code (type L to list codes): 83

Changed system type of partition 1 to 83 (Linux)

finally you need to write those changes so do that with a simple 'w'

Code:
Command (m for help): w

The partition table has been altered!

to verify that the changes are made as root do

Code:
fdisk -l

as you see below, /dev/hdb is now type 83=linux

Quote:[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux

/dev/hda2 14 14593 117113850 8e Linux LVM

Disk /dev/hdb: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hdb1 * 1 14589 117186111 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hdc: 123.5 GB, 123522416640 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 15017 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hdc1 1 15017 120624021 42 SFS

Disk /dev/hdd: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hdd1 1 14589 117186111 42 SFS

ok, now that's all done, you need to format the hdd to your chosen filesystem, i chose ext3 and this is how i did it

Code:
mkfs.ext3 /dev/hdb1

it won't take long, and once done you'll see something like this scroll by,,

Quote:mke2fs 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)Filesystem label=

OS type: Linux

Block size=4096 (log=2)

Fragment size=4096 (log=2)

14663680 inodes, 29296527 blocks

1464826 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user

First data block=0

Maximum filesystem blocks=29360128

895 block groups

32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group

16384 inodes per group

Superblock backups stored on blocks:

32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,

4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872

Writing inode tables: done

Creating journal (32768 blocks): done

Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 36 mounts or

180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

and that's it, only two more hdd's to go !

thanks to znx and omegaevil for assistance with this, and below please see the 5 line version of this howto ;-)

Quote:fdisk /dev/hdbt

83

w

mkfs.ext3 /dev/hdb1

cheers

anyweb

Good tutorial anyweb

anyweb

xDamox