I am installing Arch Linux on a previously Windows machine. I have created the partitions, with root on sda1, and now I am trying to format it with mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1, but it's not liking that. Apparently the partition already has a label "RECOVERY", and the command doesn't execute with the error: /dev/sda1 is apparently in use by the system; will not make a filesystem here!. What is going on and what should I do to fix this?
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Shivashriganesh Mahato
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It's almost certainly mounted, probably by FUSE as part of a graphical file manager you're using (such as nautilus).
You can see what's mounted via the mount command. No arguments are required. You'll probably find sda1 in that list along with its mount point. Use umount /path/to/mount/point to release it, then feel free to smash it with an mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1 command.
It's also possible that you're seeing the block device which contains your Arch installer. Make sure you're not doing that when you look at your mount command. If /dev/sda1 is mounted to something like / or /boot, that's not the disk you're looking for.
Spooler
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Running `mount`, I'm not seeing /dev/sda1. – Shivashriganesh Mahato Apr 30 '17 at 03:03
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1If that's the case, post the output of `mount` as well as `lsblk -f` and `blkid`. That should tell what this is. – Spooler Apr 30 '17 at 19:05
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1Rebooting actually ended up fixing the issue.. Thank you, though. – Shivashriganesh Mahato May 01 '17 at 17:33