This article was co-authored by our trained team of editors and researchers who validated it for accuracy and comprehensiveness. wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards.

You can format your drives using the Disks utility that comes installed with Ubuntu. If the Disks utility is giving you errors, or you have a corrupted partition, you can use GParted to format instead. You can also use GParted to resize existing partitions, allowing you to create a second partition from your drive's free space.

{"smallUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/images\/thumb\/2\/27\/Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-1-Version-4.jpg\/v4-460px-Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-1-Version-4.jpg","bigUrl":"\/images\/thumb\/2\/27\/Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-1-Version-4.jpg\/aid826747-v4-728px-Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-1-Version-4.jpg","smallWidth":460,"smallHeight":345,"bigWidth":"728","bigHeight":"546","licensing":"<div class=\"mw-parser-output\"><p>License: <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\" class=\"external text\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/3.0\/\">Creative Commons<\/a><br>\n<\/p><p><br \/>\n<\/p><\/div>"}
Open the Disks program. You can quickly find this by opening the Dash and typing disks . This will display all of your connected drives on the left side of the window.
{"smallUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/images\/thumb\/c\/c2\/Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-2-Version-4.jpg\/v4-460px-Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-2-Version-4.jpg","bigUrl":"\/images\/thumb\/c\/c2\/Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-2-Version-4.jpg\/aid826747-v4-728px-Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-2-Version-4.jpg","smallWidth":460,"smallHeight":345,"bigWidth":"728","bigHeight":"546","licensing":"<div class=\"mw-parser-output\"><p>License: <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\" class=\"external text\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/3.0\/\">Creative Commons<\/a><br>\n<\/p><p><br \/>\n<\/p><\/div>"}
Select the drive you want to format. All of your drives will appear in the left frame. Be careful when you're selecting your drive, as everything on the partition will be deleted when you format it.
{"smallUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/images\/thumb\/5\/54\/Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-3-Version-4.jpg\/v4-460px-Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-3-Version-4.jpg","bigUrl":"\/images\/thumb\/5\/54\/Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-3-Version-4.jpg\/aid826747-v4-728px-Format-a-Hard-Drive-Using-Ubuntu-Step-3-Version-4.jpg","smallWidth":460,"smallHeight":345,"bigWidth":"728","bigHeight":"546","licensing":"<div class=\"mw-parser-output\"><p>License: <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer noopener\" class=\"external text\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/3.0\/\">Creative Commons<\/a><br>\n<\/p><p><br \/>\n<\/p><\/div>"}