On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 17:05, Robert Moskowitz <rgm at htt-consult.com> wrote: > Do I unmount the drive after inserting it before I issue: > mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1 Yes, if it's mounted, unmount it before running the mkfs command. > BTW, when I do a 'man mkfs.ext3' it takes me to the man pages for mke2fs. Yes, they are the same. > After the format is done, do I have to do anything to make sure everything > is 'written' to the drive before pulling it from the system? After formatting, no, the empty ext3 filesystem should be written on the drive and safe. If you mount it and write data to it, you should unmount it before unplugging, otherwise you may lose data. HTH, Filipe