How to Format Hard Drive on Ubuntu

You can format the drive using the Disks utility that comes pre-installed on Ubuntu. If the Disks utility reports an error or the partition is damaged, you can use GParted to format it. In addition, GParted can also resize existing partitions, allowing you to create more partitions from an empty drive.

Table of Contents

Perform Quick Format

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Open the Disks program. You can quickly find it by opening Dash and typing disks . All drives connected to the computer will appear on the left side of the window.

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Select the drive you want to format. All drives will be in the left pane. Be careful when choosing a drive because all data on the partition will be erased when you format it.

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Click the Gear button and select “Format Partition”. A new window devoted to configuring the file system will open.

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Select the file system you want to use. Click the “Type” menu and choose the file system you want to use.

If you want to use the drive to transfer files between Linux, Mac, Windows computers, or most devices that support USB storage, select “FAT.”
If you are only using the drive on your Linux computer, select “Ext4.”
If you are only using the drive on Windows, select “NTFS.”

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Name the disk space. You can enter a label for the formatted volume in the blank data field. This will help you identify the drive.

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You can choose to securely delete or not. By default, the formatting process will erase but not overwrite data on the drive. If you want to securely delete the content, select “Overwrite existing data with zeroes” from the “Erase” menu. This format option takes longer, but is safer.

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Click the “Format” button to get started. You will be asked for confirmation before proceeding. Formatting takes a long time for large drives or when you select the secure erase option.

If you have trouble formatting the drive, use GParted in the next step.

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Mount the drive after formatting. After formatting the drive, click the “Mount” button that appears under the Vpumes graph. The partition will be mounted and you will be able to access the filesystem for storage. Click the link that appears to open the drive in the file browser, or open the Files program and find the drive in the left pane. ^{[1] X Research Source}

Using GParted

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Open Terminal. You can open Terminal from the Dash, or press Ctrl + Alt + T .

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Install GParted. Enter the following command to install GParted. You will be asked for a user password, which does not appear when you enter:

sudo apt-get install gparted
Press the Y key when asked to continue.

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Launch GParted from Dash. Open the Dash and type “gparted” to find GParted Partition Editor.” You’ll see a bar that represents the current drive partition and the amount of free space on it.

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Select the drive you want to format. Click the drop-down menu in the upper-right corner to select the drive you want to format. If you can’t tell the difference, look at the drive size to determine.

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Unmount the partition you want to change or delete. To make changes in GParted, you need to unmount the partition first. Right-click the partition in the list or chart and select “Unmount”.

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Delete existing partition. The partition will be erased and converted to an unknown component. You can then create a new partition from this section and format the drive using the file system.

Right click on the partition you want to delete and then click “Delete”.

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Create a new partition. After deleting the partition, right click on the undefined part and select “New”. The process of creating a new partition will begin.

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Select the partition size. When you create a new partition, you can use the slider to select how much space you want to assign to that partition.

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Select the file system of the partition. Use the “File system” menu to choose a format for the partition. If you plan to use the drive for multiple operating systems and devices, select “fat32”. If you are only using the drive in Linux, select “ext4.”

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Name the partition. This will help you easily identify the partition on the system.

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Click “Add” when finished configuring the partition. The partition will be added to the execution queue at the bottom of the screen.

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Resize partition (optional). One of the features of Gparted is to resize partitions. Resizing the partition will create space for you to create new partitions. Basically, this allows you to split the drive into parts without affecting the data on it.

Right click on the partition where you want to re-size and select “Resize/Move”.
Drag the edges of the partition to create an empty drive first and then.
Click “Resize/Move” to confirm the change. You need to create a new partition from the unknown part according to the instructions above.

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Click the green checkmark to start applying the change. No changes will be applied to the drive until you click this button. After clicking, all partitions that you set to delete will be deleted along with all data on it. You need to be sure of everything before proceeding.

It can take a while for all processes to complete, especially if you are working with many partitions or large drives.

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Find the drive you just formatted. After the format is complete, you can close GParted and find the drive in the Files program’s drive list. ^{[2] X Research Source}

Steps

Perform Quick Format

Using GParted

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