Reformat NTFS Partition into EXT4 Partition

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∟Reformat NTFS Partition into EXT4 Partition

Provides a tutorial example on how to reformat a NTFS partition into a EXT4 partition on Linux system using the 'fsmk -t ext4' command.

In an earlier tutorial, we learned how to mount NTFS partition (a partition formatted as NTFS file system) on a Linux system. Use can continue to use the NTFS partition to read and write files without any problem. But its ownership is limited to a single user and a single group.

If want to want to use this NTFS partition as a Linux native partition, you can reformat it into an EXT4 partition as described below:

1. Verify the partition type, size and location.

herong$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda5        167778304 1748721663 1580943360 753.9G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

2. Mount the partition to backup its data.

herong$ sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda5 /mnt/temp

herong$ sudo cd /mnt/temp
herong$ sudo tar -c -z -f /mnt/backup/sda6.tar.gz *

herong$ sudo rm -R /mnt/temp/*

3. Make sure the partition is empty. The output of the "df" command shows 434,820 KB used by the file system over head for journaling.

herong$ ls -l /mnt/temp
total 0

herong$ df
Filesystem            1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5             790471676    434820 790036856   1% /mnt/temp

4. Reformat the partition after un-mounting the it.

herong$ sudo umount /dev/sda5

herong$ sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sda5
mke2fs 1.44.6 (5-Mar-2019)

/dev/sda5 contains a ntfs file system labelled 'FTP'
Proceed anyway? (y,N) y

Creating filesystem with 197617920 4k blocks and 49405952 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 3b893ba9-9bde-48ad-a85e-f4805ce36bc4
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
  32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
  4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
  102400000

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (262144 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

5. Verify formatting result. I see that the partition type is still labeled as "HPFS/NTFS/exFAT" in the "fdisk" output. Hope it will not cause any problems.

herong$ sudo parted /dev/sda print
Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system  Flags
 5      85.9GB  895GB   809GB   logical   ext4

herong$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda5        167778304 1748721663 1580943360 753.9G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
   fdisk information out of synch
  hope it will impact any I/O operations

6. Change the partition label to "data".

herong$ sudo e2label /dev/sda5 data

7. Do some input/output test after mounting it.

herong$ sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/temp

herong$ cd /mnt/temp

herong$ sudo touch junk
herong$ ls -l
total 16
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root     0 Nov  2 05:14 junk
drwx------. 2 root root 16384 Nov  2 04:51 lost+found