Format ext4 Everyone or Only root, lost+found folder, and how to delete Windows files after formatting?

General system Newbie
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Hello friends.

I have several doubts and problems. I left Windows 10 and I am formatting my external hard drives, so I want to format it with ext4, so that they are the same as my EndeavourOS.

The external 1TB HDD, had about 50gb of hidden files, in a folder (I think from Windows 10) called RECYCLEBIN$ (or something like that, I don’t remember). The HDD was only 5% occupied, and I thought formatting would remove these files.

So with KDE Parition Manager, I deleted all partitions, created a new GPT partition table, and created a new ext4 partition, and it was formatted in less than 1 minute.

So the hard drive is now formatted in ext4, but I have several doubts:

Why did the lost+found folder appear, with a lock, and I can’t delete it, and it’s empty, why was this folder created and what is it for?

Why are those 5% still busy, maybe formatting couldn’t remove files from Windows 10?

In the format window, under Permissions, I can choose Everyone or Only Root. What does this mean, does it mean that if I am root and my name is 123, and tomorrow I format my EndeavourOS, and I create another new root called 456, I will not be able to access the HDD, even if I am root, because that option will only give unique access to user 123, and the drive will be inaccessible to new root?

So, if this is the case, and I want to have an external drive like in Windows 10, that I connect it and I can access everything on that HDD, should I select the format with the Everyone option?

If you have any recommendation to format my HDD you can tell me, thanks!

Thanks in advance for your time friends.


2

It holds recovered data. Data is typically placed there by fsck when it finds unlinked data.

ext4 reserves data by default. You can remove or lower the reserved data if you wish to.

 sudo tune2fs -m 0 /dev/sdxx

Replace /dev/sdxx with the device for your partition.

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Although it’s a good idea to leave some % for longevity of drive, as far as i remember.

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Thanks friends.

So it’s not a KDE Partition Manager bug.

But what does the Everyone and Only Root option mean then?

I mean, if I format EOS, and create a new user, will I be able to access this SSD, or should it just be the old root user who has a unique ID to access that SSD, or something?

So, the normal option would be default, Only Root, or Everyone?

Because it’s a hard drive for saving movies, music, and backup, so you may need to access it from a newly formatted EOS sometime in the future with a totally different username.

(Although whenever I reinstall EOS, I check the option “use the same password for root”)

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You can change the ownership of the mounted drive with the chown command:

sudo chown $USER:$USER -R /run/media/$USER/TOSHIBA

You can do this whenever you want. Just unmount and remount for the change to take effect. If you have a lot of files, give the command a moment or two to complete changing the ownership of all the files since it is run recursively.

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Thank you all friends.

I finally managed to fix it, with KDE Partition Manager. You have to remove all partitions and apply the changes, create a new gpt partition table, and apply the changes, create a new ext4 partition with Everyone permissions, and apply the changes.

If you do these 3 steps and only apply the changes at the end, it will create an extra partition (I don’t know why, maybe this doesn’t happen with Gparted).

So, applying the changes with each change, when finishing the 3 changes applied, only sdb1 ext 4 will be created with 100% of the hard drive.

And with Only Root permissions, it doesn’t allow me to copy or paste files, and I need to be able to copy files to that folder every so often, so setting Everyone permissions, I can copy and paste everything without problems.

Thanks again everyone for your help friends!

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