format portable hard drive

[waynecusack]

I have a Seagate 1.5 TB portable drive (USB). It was originally purchased for backup storage, but is no longer used for that. I'd like to format it EXT4 and use it for data storage on my laptop, which runs Linux Mint. GParted produces the following error message that repeats several times:
Libparted Warning
Error fsyncing/closing/dev/sdb1: Remote I/O error
and then
Lipparted Error
Remote I/O error during write on /dev/sdb
When I click on "Ignore" it eventually takes me to the GParted screen that is supposed to show the hard drives. It only shows the primary hard drive, which is internal.

When I access the "Drives" app instead the drive does show up, with the following information:
Model: ST 1500LM003-9YH148(CC9F)
Size: 1.5 TB
Partitioning: Master Boot Record
Serial Number: Z110Q9QG
Assessment: Disk is OK (34 degrees C / 93 degrees F)
Volumes
Partition 1
1.5 TB Unknown / Free Space 2.6 MB
Size 1.STB (1,500,299,297,280 bytes)
Device: /dev/sdb1
Partition Type: NTFS/exFAT/HPFS
Contents: Unknown

When I try formatting from the "Disks" app, I get the following message:

Error Formatting Volume
Error Creating File System: Command Line mkfs.ext4 -F -L "Seagate Portable" "dev/sdb1" exited with non-zero exit status 121
It then lists a number of blocks, tables and journals that have been done, and finished with
Warning, had trouble writing out superblocks.
(udisks-error-quark, 0)

I would really appreciate any help with this.

Wayne

[Da Londo]

Delete the partition first with Disks, then format.

[Hoser Rob]

Using a USB drive for data like that is really going to slow the system down.

[waynecusack]

I can live with the system being slowed down. I have an IBM Thinkpad T43 provided to me in 2006 when I enrolled in an MBA program. It originally came with an old version of Windows pre-installed - likely Windows 98, but it's so long ago that I don't recall. The Windows OS corrupted over time. I was about to trash the system, but figured it was worth trying Linux on it. In general, I am quite pleased with it, but have almost no room left on the hard drive. The computer itself is great, but it only has an 80GB hard drive and Thunderbird Mail is using a huge part of that. It's been a long time since it was a primary computer, but it works so well under Linux that I want to keep it going. I want to reformat the portable drive and then transfer Thunderbird mail to it - possibly also use it for other data. Nothing I will use it for will require a computer that operates at warp speed.

One more question, though - is there any reason why a Seagate 1.5 TB portable drive should not format for Linux as an EXT4 drive? Is there something proprietary that Seagate might have put on the drive to prevent it from being wiped and re-formatted?

Wayne Cusack

[ralplpcr]

Using a USB drive for data like that is really going to slow the system down.

This is true, but with a T43 Thinkpad, there aren't too many other choices. It uses a 2.5" IDE/PATA drive, so unless he's doing an IDE->SATA hack, size is going to be limited to about 320GB or less. There may be larger, but I've *never* seen any IDE/PATA as big as 1.5TB.

The T43 is limited to a couple of USB ports and a PCMCIA type II slot. It *may* be possible to get an Ultrabay DVD->HDD adaptor, or to pick up a used docking station to install a 2nd HDD for better speed... but it'll still be limited to whatever can be found in an IDE/PATA drive.

...One more question, though - is there any reason why a Seagate 1.5 TB portable drive should not format for Linux as an EXT4 drive? Is there something proprietary that Seagate might have put on the drive to prevent it from being wiped and re-formatted?

There shouldn't be? It really depends on the enclosure - - the drive itself is agnostic. It should take whatever type of partition & file system you want to put on it. As long as the enclosure doesn't have some weird firmware that locks it down somehow, anyhow.... can you tell us a little about this portable drive? Was it purchased as a complete device, or is this something you built using an empty enclosure?

[waynecusack]

I don't recall the details when I purchased the USB drive. It was years ago. It's possible it had proprietary firmware limiting the usage to a specific backup process, but I don't recall that. That's what led to my question. I was assuming it ought to take any system I want to put on it, but on their website Seagate only speaks of Windows and Mac systems and says the drive is pre-formatted with exFAT. The drive was purchased as a complete system - I did not build it. I have gone on the Seagate website, and though there are a few devices of similar size, none look exactly like what I have, and they appear to be more recent products.

[rickNS]

**I did not read all**

But the basic thing is you don't format a "drive", you format a partition.
so as @Da Londo said delete the existing partition first...you should be able to do so in Gparted...you didn't say exactly what it was you tried when you got said error.

Or use sudo cfdisk /dev/sdb and delete the existing partition, and move forward from there.

[SimonPeter]

.......

You may try these steps:
1) Open the Disks app.
2) Click on the disk you want to format.
3) Click on the hamburger (3 lines / 3 dots) menu.
4) Select "Format Disk..." .
5) Click "Format..." (do not change the default options) and follow the instructions.
6) Reboot the computer.
7) Repeat steps 1 and 2.
Click on the free space.
9) Click on the + icon.
10) Click Next.
11) Type a volume name and select the type,
12) Click "Format".
13) Wait for the drive to be formatted.
14) Reboot.

If this doesn't work, please post the output of these commands (with the drive in question connected):

Code: Select all

sudo parted --list
sudo lsblk