How to format SSD and HDD drive from EndeavourOS and which format/file system should I choose?

General system Newbie
1

Hello friends.

My pc is very old and only has BIOS, no UEFI/EFI (don’t know how to spell it exactly), so I can only format a SSD/HDD with MBR, I can’t format using GPT (someone correct me if I’m wrong).

So I want to format an SSD and a HDD, but I don’t know which format I should choose.

I am currently using Windows 10 + EndeavorOS with dual boot, because there are games on https://www.protondb.com/ that are 0% compatible with Linux (because of problems with Anti-Cheat blocking Linux) and I am forced to use Windows 10 (it is the only reason why I am still using Windows).

So I thought that if I want to have a hard drive that can access Windows and EndeavourOS, the only format that exists is FAT32, but I heard that it only supports 4GB files, so I couldn’t put big files on that SSD/HDD, right?

I don’t know of another similar format, so I have ruled out FAT32 because my files, games, backup, etc., exceed 4GB each.

(Currently I spend more than 90% of the time on EndeavourOS and it’s literally my main OS, but I don’t want to give up playing X games a few times with my friends. If I didn’t need to use Windows 10, I would just format all my SSD/HDD to ext4)

So for now I need to format 2 hard drives, one to Windows 10 basic format (NTFS), and the other to EndeavourOS format (ext4).

What is the correct way to do it?
Do you recommend another format/file system?
Should it be done from the terminal?

I found this for now, but I don’t know if this works for EOS/Arch, also I’ve seen different ways to do it and I don’t know which one is correct:

For example, imagine if I want to format my 1st SSD to FAT32, should I not put sda to 100% format it, instead of sda1, since sda can have 4 partitions:

sudo umount /dev/sda
sudo mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n NAME-SSD /dev/sda
press enter

I’ve seen people use different terminal commands, so which one would be correct for FAT32 and ext4?

Is the command to format an SSD different from the one to format an HDD?

Also how do I know if it’s a quick format, or a slow full format? I mean, when you format in Windows 10, you can do a quick format, or a slow deep format, I don’t know if this exists in Linux as well.

Sorry, I want to make sure I’m doing things correctly!

Thanks in advance friends!

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda      8:0    0 223,6G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0    50M  0 part 
├─sda2   8:2    0 119,4G  0 part 
├─sda3   8:3    0   535M  0 part 
└─sda4   8:4    0 103,6G  0 part /
sdb      8:16   0 223,6G  0 disk 
└─sdb1   8:17   0 223,6G  0 part 
sdc      8:32   0 232,9G  0 disk 
└─sdc1   8:33   0 232,9G  0 part
2

Since you are unaware that you can use Wine or other programs in Linux I would suggest you make the Drive NTFS so both Windows and Linux can use it. Just make sure you disable fast startup in Windows or you won’t have read / write permission in Linux.

https://www.howtogeek.com/856514/how-to-disable-fast-startup-on-windows-10/#:~:text=To%20disable%20Fast%20Startup%20on%20Windows%2010%2C%20open%20the%20Power,"%2C%20then%20save%20your%20changes.

1 Like
3

Wine? I think I’ve heard of it, also Lutris, Coffe, etc, but I don’t know what it is exactly. Some kind of Windows 10 emulator?

Do you think I can install games only compatible with Windows 10, on Linux, with Wine?

I mean, does this usually work with 50% games/programs, or will Wine emulate everything?

If this really works, I don’t need Windows 10.

But, there are free games, which you have to download the installer.exe, which is normally installed in C:/games/etc…

Will it work in this case too?

I’m going to do more research on Wine, I really don’t know where to start.

Thanks a lot friend, maybe I can finally quit Windows 10 if this works!

Maybe I can even play Overwatch 2 (now that it’s released on Steam) from my new EndeavourOS.

4

the partition table does not have anything to do with the bios/uefi/efi. I would make the sdd a gpt partition table and the hdd a mbr. GPT is recommended for any SSD and for drives 1TB or more if my memory is correct.

no you can format to NTFS as well just remember FAT nor NTFS will take into account Linux file permissions. For your needs I would go with NTFS for the time being while sharing with winblowz.

there are several ways to skin a cat in Linux. just doing and learning will help you find what works best for you.

no. the only difference between the two is the way data is accessed. HDD still uses mechanical parts. SDD is like a big thumbdrive no mechanical parts. other than that they are the same basically.

Never be sorry for learning and asking questions. We were all where you are now at one time.

If memory serves me and well that’s debatable. The quote quick format option is just an actual formatting operation the normal or default is basically a scan disk first then format. This is why a normal format on winblowz takes longer.

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5

Wine may work for you or may not. I personally haven’t used it in over 15 years as I am completely winblowz environment free. Just remember wine will have updates and what works today can be broke tomorrow. Personally if you are that into PC games then I would just leave a copy of Winblowz for that.

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