Install e2fsprogs. To format a partition do: # mkfs.ext4 /dev/partition See mke2fs(8) for more options. From mke2fs(8): mke2fs creates an inode for every bytes-per-inode bytes of space on the disk. The larger the bytes-per-inode ratio, the fewer inodes will be created. Creating a new file, directory, symlink etc. requires at least one free inode. If the inode count is too low, no file can be creat