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How to format a drive to NTFS using the terminal in Ubuntu.


To format a drive to NTFS using Ubuntu, we need to use the terminal. The command used to create a filesystem on a drive is used here. But you must unmount the drive first, otherwise it will not work.

4.4 Thu Dec 20 jason@Yog-Sothoth 0: $ sudo mkfs.ntfs /dev/sdf6 
1) All commands run with root privileges are always dangerous.
2) Never run commands on an environment you are not willing to destroy, or able to restore.
3) Do not become root until you know what you are going to do.
4) Be sure of your command and what is going to be affected by it.
[sudo] password for jason: 
/dev/sdf6 is mounted.
Refusing to make a filesystem here!

Unmount the drive, and the command will be successful.

4.4 Thu Dec 20 jason@Yog-Sothoth 0: $ sudo mkfs.ntfs /dev/sdf6 
Cluster size has been automatically set to 4096 bytes.
Initializing device with zeroes:  17%

This will take a long time depending upon the size of the drive, as the space on the drive needs to be initialized with zeroes to properly wipe it first.

If all went well, this is what you should get.

4.4 Thu Dec 20 jason@Yog-Sothoth 0: $ sudo mkfs.ntfs /dev/sdf6 
Cluster size has been automatically set to 4096 bytes.
Initializing device with zeroes: 100% - Done.
Creating NTFS volume structures.
mkntfs completed successfully. Have a nice day.

The drive was formatted properly and all is well. This is how easy it is to format a drive to NTFS on Ubuntu.


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