HDD mounting issue

Question

I try to use a HDD. When I type

sudo fdisk -l

I get

   Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
    Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x8c508bb8

       Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    /dev/sdb1   *           0           0           0    0  Empty

When I type df (with and without sudo) /dev/sdb does not appear.

When I type sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb /mnt i get

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

What should I do?

Answer 1

To use the disk, you first have to create a partition. This can be done with fdisk for example. To use it for your device, you can issue sudo fdisk /dev/sdb. Afterwards you can follow the menu inside the program.

After having created a partition, you should create a file system on it. Assuming that your newly created partition is /dev/sdb1 and you want for example to create an ext4 file system on it: sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1.

After having done so, you can mount your partition to a folder like this: sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt

Answer 2

As Chris mentioned you need to partition the drive. The best way to do this if you are familiar is to run fdisk and create at least one primary partition.

Also dev/sdb is a drive not a partition Partitions are usually something like sdb1 sdb2 etc.

Ben