formating a disk

[Jerry McAllister]

> 
> Hi all
> 
> I've strange problem with a external disk (firewire). I don't know how I
> can format it.
> 
> I've already format this disk (on my FreeBSD box with newfs), after that I
> re­format this disk with Windows XP (maybe bad idea ;-) ) and now I cannot
> format the disk with anything
> 
> When I try fdisk 
> 
> [root at freebsd1 rc.d]# fdisk -BI da0
> ******* Working on device /dev/da0 *******
> fdisk: invalid fdisk partition table found
> fdisk: Geom not found
> [root at freebsd1 rc.d]# 
> 
> If I try to use sysinstall I can make a slice, but when I want to format
> the disk I go a error.
> 
> If I try to format directly (without slice) it's working but I cannot mount
> the disk.
> 
> Anyone can help me ?

I wonder what exactly you mean by 'format'.
We don't tend to use that word to mean making slices (fdisk), 
partitions (disklabel/bsdlabel) or file systems (newfs).

Usually format refers to something done at the very low leval of
the drive and is normally only done at the manufacturer nowdays.
I expect you mean one or more of the others, but cannot say.

But, anyway, that is what you need to do - in that order.  
  fdisk,  disk/abel/bsdlabel,  newfs

So, try and explain what you have done using these utilities if
you have and if you haven't, then check them out and see if
that helps.   If you really did a "format" under XP, then I think
you can just start over with fdisk, but I haven't tried that on
a hard disk much less a firewire device.

Good luck,

////jerry

> 
> NB: The disk work..because I reformat it under windows XP.
> --
> Albert SHIH
> Universite de Paris 7 (Denis DIDEROT)
> U.F.R. de Mathematiques.
> Heure local/Local time:
> Fri Mar 31 01:28:14 CEST 2006
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-questions at freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"
> 
>