Let's Do This Disk Thing Now

Enough time wasting! Let's get this hard drive working!

First, partition the drive. This will erase any data on the disk.

Partition the disk using fdisk

fdisk /dev/hdd

Delete the existing partition

Command: d

Add a new partition

Command: n

Make it extended

Command action e

Specify the first partition

Partition number (1-4): 1

Start with the first cylinder

First cylinder (1-xxxx, default=1): [enter]

Use them all

Last cylinder (default=xxxx): [enter]

View the results

Command: p

Write the partition table and exit (no undo!)

Command: w

Now, format the drive using ext3.

Issue format command

mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hdd1

Here's the first error of the night:
/dev/hdd1: Invalid argument passed to ext2 library while setting up superblock

That's enough for tonight. More tomorrow.

UPDATE: See the next post for a solution for this error.