Wipe, create a partition, format and mount a drive using UUID on Linux Ubuntu

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  1. Wipe: We remove the partitions so that we can start with a clean drive.
  2. Partition: A partition is a logical division on a hard drive. We create a partition to be able for format it.
  3. Format: We format the partition to create a filesystem suited for our Linux System.
  4. Mount: We mount the drive using UUID so that the system remembers the connected drive after reboot.
  5. Permissions: We need to set the permissions of the mounted drive folder to read and write for our Linux user

Wipe all partitions

Get the drive name

First we need to identify the drive name in order for us to wipe it.

lsblk
The drive name is sdb and the partition name is sdb1

Remove partition

Now we will remove the first and only partition the drive sdb contains sdb1. Your drives can be found in the folder /dev.

sudo gdisk /dev/sdb

It will ask you for a command, answer with d to delete the single partition. If you have more than one, it will ask you which one to remove.

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.5

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Command (? for help): d
Using 1

Now answer with w to write the changes we made.

Command (? for help): w
Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING PARTITIONS!!

Answer with Y to confirm.

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): Y

Create a partition

Now that the drive is wiped, we can start creating our partition so the drive can be used on our Linux system.

sudo gdisk /dev/sdb

Answer with n to create a new partition.

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.5

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Command (? for help): n

We want to create 1 partition, answer with this number.

Partition number (1-128, default 1): 1

Press enter 3 times to use the default options.

First sector (34-11721045134, default = 2048) or {+-}size{KMGTP}:
Last sector (2048-11721045134, default = 11721045134) or {+-}size{KMGTP}:
Current type is 8300 (Linux filesystem)
Hex code or GUID (L to show codes, Enter = 8300):

Now answer with w to write the changes we made.

Command (? for help): w
Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING PARTITIONS!!

Answer with Y to confirm.

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): Y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/sdb.
The operation has completed successfully.

Format

We will now format the partition we created to ext4.

ext4 journaling file system  fourth extended filesystem  Learn more
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

These are all the options if you're not looking to format your drive for a Linux System or simply prefer something else:

  • Ext2
  • Ext3
  • Ext4
  • BFS
  • FAT
  • NTFS
  • MINIX
  • VFAT
  • CRAMFS
  • MSDOS

Learn more about these filesystems here.

Mounting

Create the folder where you want to mount your drive.

sudo mkdir /media/hdd

Find the UUID of the partitioned drive we created.

blkid /dev/sdb1

Now we will mount the drive in /etc/fstab to make sure the drive stays connected after rebooting.

sudo nano /etc/fstab

At the end of the file and the following line.

UUID=d65b638e-55b5-4c05-8d97-ad32c20189ed /media/hdd ext4 defaults 0 0

Edit your UUID and the path to the folder your drive should connect to. Save the file and exit.

Finally reboot your system and your drive will be mounted to the path that you chose.

sudo reboot

Permissions

Now that the drive is mounted we need to set its permissions to read and write for our Linux user. My username is ubuntu.

sudo chown ubuntu /media/hdd

Something went wrong?

If something went wrong and you are stuck in boot, then remove the last line you committed in /etc/fstab .

sudo nano /etc/fstab
sudo reboot

Then restart from the top.