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Nocturnal_Deviant

Member

From: Kent, United Kingdom

Registered: 2008-04-09

Posts: 17

External Drive Question

I have a Buffalo DriveStation 320GB external drive that is currently formatted  as FAT32.  Now as neither myself or my girlfriend use Windows anymore I would like to know if I can format the drive as EXT3 and still have the drive mount automatically as it does at the moment and if I can what is the easiest way to do this.

bgc1954

Member

From: Edmonton, AB, Canada

Registered: 2006-03-14

Posts: 1,110

Re: External Drive Question

If it already mounts that shouldn't change.  Just use something like gparted (Gnome) or qtparted (KDE). Start up gparted or qtparted as root and use the graphical interface to pick your external drive and reformat it to ext3--if it's already mounted it will show a lock symbol beside the drive and you will need to unlock it first before you make the change.  That's the easiest way I know of unless you prefer cli.\\

Edit:  You'll also need to change your /etc/fstab to reflect the change from vfat to ext3 so it mounts properly the next time you boot.

Last edited by bgc1954 (2008-04-15 13:25:43)

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configs... Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ... - Louis Hector Berlioz

Nocturnal_Deviant

Member

From: Kent, United Kingdom

Registered: 2008-04-09

Posts: 17

Re: External Drive Question

If it already mounts that shouldn't change.  Just use something like gparted (Gnome) or qtparted (KDE). Start up gparted or qtparted as root and use the graphical interface to pick your external drive and reformat it to ext3--if it's already mounted it will show a lock symbol beside the drive and you will need to unlock it first before you make the change.  That's the easiest way I know of unless you prefer cli.\\

Edit:  You'll also need to change your /etc/fstab to reflect the change from vfat to ext3 so it mounts properly the next time you boot.

I formated the drive as ext3 with gparted fine. I had already checked the /etc/fstab and there was nothing listed for drive and when I rebooted the drive appeared on the desktop just fine.  However when I came to add a directory to the drive  I was told that I didn't have any permissions on the drive and only root did.  What I need to do now is somehow change the permissions so I have full access to the drive.