Partition and Format

Edit partition and format in Linux

Once you know what partitions you’ve got
$ sudo fdisk -l

In my case, I see that the drive is called /dev/sdb1.

MS-DOS/Windows XP file system under Linux, enter:
$ sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1
mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n volume_name /dev/sdb1

Ok, try specifying the filesystem type:
$ mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1

Linux format:
$ sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/hda[0 .. whatever here ] /mnt/ubuntu
$ sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/hda[0 .. whatever here ] /mnt/ubuntu

o set up a swap partition:
$ sudo mkswap -f /dev/sdb2

To activate the swap area:
$ sudo swapon /dev/sdb2