Here’s what I would do:
Unplug everything from your Vero other than the HDD you are looking to format.
On your Windows machine you need to SSH into your Vero.
Open up Windows PowerShell.
In PowerShell you need to connect to your Vero.
To do this you need to know your Vero’s IP address.
If you don’t know it already you can find it in your Vero settings (Home Screen > Settings > System Info > Network).
Back in PowerShell connect to the Vero by typing: ssh osmc@<ip address of your device>
Example:ssh osmc@192.168.1.6
The first time you do this it will ask you if you want to connect, say yes.
It won’t ask you again.
When it ask you for your password, type: osmc, then hit enter.
Don’t be thrown off that you don’t see the cursor move as you type, that is normal.
You should now be logged in to your Vero and see this:
osmc@osmc:~$ _Now type in df and hit enter.
You’ll get a listing of devices connected to your Vero that looks something like this:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs 774688 0 774688 0% /dev
tmpfs 899236 49720 849516 6% /run
/dev/vero-nand/root 14499760 10163084 3577076 74% /
tmpfs 899236 0 899236 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 899236 0 899236 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda1 7811937256 0 7811937256 0% /
tmpfs 179844 0 179844 0% /run/user/1000If you only have the one USB HDD plugged in it should be /dev/sda1.
You’ll know which one it is because it has the largest amount of blocks.
Now we want unmount the drive so we can wipe it clean and format it.
Type in: sudo umount /dev/sda1
Now you’re ready to wipe it, type: sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 bs=1M count=64
Now create a partition, type: sudo fdisk /dev/sda
That get’s you in to fdisk.
Use d to delete all the partions.
Then use n to create a new partition.
It will ask you a few questions about how you want to create that partition, since we are not doing anything special, just use all the default values it suggests.
Now to apply everything you just did you need to write it to the disk by using w.
Now that you have a wiped HDD with a new partition you can finally due what you want to do, create a file system to your liking that uses up as little overhead space as possible.
You will use mkfs.ext4 to do this by typing: mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1 -T largefile4 -m 1 -L <what ever you want to call your disk>
Now when picking your disk label, the value you put in after -L, it’s easiest to avoid spaces or long names.
If it’s too long, it will get truncated down to 16 characters and if you insist on using spaces then you need to put your label name in quotation marks like -L "Drive Name".
Now reboot the Vero by typing reboot.
After the Vero reboots, you should be good to go.
You can check by reconnecting to the Vero again and using df.
The Vero should automount it to /media/ like this:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs 774688 0 774688 0% /dev
tmpfs 899236 16952 882284 2% /run
/dev/vero-nand/root 14499760 10157940 3582220 74% /
tmpfs 899236 0 899236 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 899236 0 899236 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sdb2 7813894140 5989759300 1824134840 77% /media/Seagate Backup Plus Drive
/dev/sda1 7811937256 3535440728 4198339892 46% /media/Seagate8TB
/dev/sdc2 3906885628 2154123292 1752762336 56% /media/Seagate Backup Plus 4TB
/dev/sdd2 4883638268 1591420928 3292217340 33% /media/Seagate Backup Plus 5TB
tmpfs 179844 0 179844 0% /run/user/1000In my example above the Seagate8TB is my ext4 drive, the others with longer names and spaces are NTFS drives.
How did I find myself with 25TB of USB storage?
Thanks Vero!