New external HDD, format in EXT4, backup to that drive, and related issues

English Hardware
#1

Dear all,

I have purchased a 2.0 TB hard drive to back up my data on two OpenSUSE-powered computers.

Problem #1 is that I could not format the NTFS-formatted disk There are some commands like the following (my hard drive is presented as /dev/sdb1)

# fdisk /dev/sdb
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1
# tune2fs -m 0 /dev/sdb1 

# tune2fs -L bakap01 /dev/sdb1

The page reference is

Formatting an External Hard Disk with Ext4 | Borap Blag

My disk vendor is Western Digital, and their website refuses to help GNU/Linux - UNIX-using people. They tell us to work with our community.

I have also found and installed Gparted software but it does not give any details about how the partition is deleted. I can only learn information, but I could not modify it. I have entered my credentials when asked.

Problem #2 is linked with Problem #1 and it is about how to create a new partition, say, the first partition will be 1.5 TB with EXT4, and the second partition will be 0.5 TB with NTFS (for using with Windows machines in emergency situations).

That is all for now, I am awaiting your replies. Thank you.
BA

#2

As you do only provide the commands, but not what they told back, how would you think we can assess, comment, do anything with that information?
Please start with an

fdisk -l /dev/sdb

to convince us that there is a /dev/sdb1 and to show us how it looks like.

Also, you say "I could not format the NTFS-formatted disk ", but you fail to tell how you found out that it failed. At least, I see no error message or whatever evidence to let you make such conclusion in your post.

Also, why did you not use YaST > System > System partitioning? It can do the partitioning, file system creation creation of a proper* /etc/fstab *entry and mounting for you in an integrated tool.

#3

bakkurt wrote:
> My disk vendor is Western Digital, and their website refuses to help
> GNU/Linux - UNIX-using people. They tell us to work with our community.

Yes. For that and other reasons (i.e. bad experiences) I would recommend
that you return the disk and choose some other vendor.

#4

Have you ever worked with the YAST system for performing such tasks? It’s a very simple system, easy to understand and puts everything right there in front of you. It even uses exactly the same layout from the console.

As long as you are reading through everything that it is displaying for you, it will be difficult to choose the wrong drive and hose your system. Possible, but less likely.