[SOLVED] format drives in the command line

[arminius]

I've given up on the disk formatter in the Mageia, it has not progress bar so when it freezes up it takes a while to realise.
so would like to be more proficient in formatting from the command line, I assume there will be a percentage meter there.
but all my googling has only revealed how to do it from windows command line.
So if someone could let me know I would be grateful.

[richardwest]

You could try "man mke2fs".

DESCRIPTION
mke2fs is used to create an ext2, ext3, or ext4 filesystem, usually in
a disk partition. device is the special file corresponding to the
device (e.g /dev/hdXX). blocks-count is the number of blocks on the
device. If omitted, mke2fs automagically figures the file system size.
If called as mkfs.ext3 a journal is created as if the -j option was
specified.

[JoesCat]

Go to command line.
Become a root super user.

su

type
mkfs and press TAB to see the various incarnations.

man mkfs

should also help.

e2label can be used to add labels to partitions for ext2,3,4
...forgot what command it would be for labelling NTFS or VFAT but it exists too. Perhaps someone else who remembers can chirp in...

[doktor5000]

mkfs.* doesn't support progress bars IIRC, which is what the OP explicitely wanted. Or do some of them support it?

[widget]

mkfs works fine. In terminal I prefer cfdisk.

Neither of them use a progress bar.

You could do it using Gparted. That has a progress bar. Not CLI though.

[arminius]

I'm liking midnight commander, doesn't seem to be much it can't copy and delete.
And you'll know in minutes if it ever freezes, but it's yet to do that yet.

[doktor5000]

I'm liking midnight commander, doesn't seem to be much it can't copy and delete.

Normally you can copy&delete everything, just a question of the right permissions and, more important that the underlying filesystem/hardware is good.