is it possible to format an external USB drive with XFS or EXT3 ?

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Level 1

9 points

is it possible to format an external USB drive with XFS or EXT3 ?

Greetings all.

I am running a 2,8Ghz 8x core with 6Gb ram. I have a NAS, (Buffalo Pro Duo Linkstation) which has a built in linux which saves data using XFS (I think). It has a built in backup routine, but the drive it backs up to MUST be in XFS or EXT3 (Fat 32 works but it drops all files over 2GB ;( ... ) So - here's my question:

How can I format the external USB drive (A seagate freeagent) in XFS or EXT3 so that it can run on my Buffalo? My preference is to use a GUI mac program (does one exist?) or to use a command line UNIX command (FSK? - but then, how????). I could also use (GASP!) a windows utility on parallels, or even install a linux distro via parallels. But it should be easy I hope...

Looking forward to any ideas/thoughts, tips, etc.

thanks and best to all from Berlin,

Jason

MacPro 2,8Ghz 8core/6GB ram, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Jul 23, 2008 3:11 AM

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Answer 1

Tim Haigh

Level 7

24,198 points

Jul 23, 2008 3:46 AM in response to thinkbuild

try booting your mac with any 1 of number of live linux cd's you can download. then you could attach your nas drive to it using usb and format it.

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Answer 2

thinkbuild Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 23, 2008 5:29 AM in response to Tim Haigh

Thanks for the idea ... here are my problems:

1) i would be happy to try this - any suggestions which one i should use? can you send/post a link for one that will run on my macpro 2,8Ghz 8core/6GB ram?

2) i admit! i am a total newbie. what then? i would have to make sure the external drive mounted via USB ⚠, then...

3) what do i do? i assume there is a variant of FSCK which will do it ... open terminal, su authenticate, then locate drive? then fsck ...?

thanks for any (more) ideas!

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Answer 3

Jul 23, 2008 6:21 AM in response to thinkbuild

Download a "Live CD" (one you can boot of into running copy of Linux without having to install anything; for example, [OpenSUSE Live CD|http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.0/iso/cd/openSUSE-11.0-GNOME-Li veCD-x86_64.iso]).

Use OS X' Disk Utility to burn it to a CD.

Insert the CD you just burned (if it ejected afterwards), and then restart your Mac.

Hold down the 'C' key on the keyboard as the Mac boots, and it should switch to booting off the CD. Once the CD starts loading, you can let go. It will take a couple of minutes, but it will eventually boot into Linux.

Attach your USB drive.

Run gparted (you need to search the menus for it, it's under system administration, I think -- or you can open up a terminal window and simply type 'gparted').

Find your disk (/dev/sdb or /dev/sda) and partition and format it using the filesystem you want.

When done, restart the computer. You'll boot back into Mac OS X and have an EXT2/EXT3/XFS formatted external drive (that OS X won't recognize, by the way).

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Answer 4

Oct 7, 2008 12:15 PM in response to thinkbuild

I was just wondering the same thing. I noticed that the web-based LinkStation management system provides you possibility to format your USB-drive as well.Disk Management / USB settings, then click on the icon or the USB disk name and you should get a page with a format option. No idea what format it will be, I am not ready yet to assign a disk completely as a slave to Buffalo...

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