Before using the mkfs command to create a file system, the fsck command can be used to determine if the partition has a file system type.

fsck -N /dev/sda1

If the partition does have a file system type, something like this should be returned. In this example, the /dev/sda1 partition has the XFS file system.

[/usr/sbin/fsck.xfs (1) -- /boot] fsck.xfs /dev/sda1

The mkfs command can be used to create a filesystem. In this example, the /dev/sda2 partition will be configured to use the ext4 file system.

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

Or like this.

mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sda2

The mkfs is very simple, and only has a few options. the mke2fs command is more advanced, and includes many possible options.

Following are some of the more popular filesystem types used by Linux.

• ext2 (second extended file system)
• ext3 (third extended file system)
• ext4 (fourth extended file system)
• xfs (extended file system)
• lvm (logical volume)
• raid

The -c flag (faster) or -cc flag (slower) can be used to check for bad blocks before creating the file system.

mkfs.ext4 -c /dev/sda2