(1) The drives generally arrive with fat32 file systems, when first attaching the drive, allow the workstation to mount the drive. Then unmount by right-clicking over the drive icon on the desktop and selecting 'eject/unload' or issuing the umount /media/(drive) command.

(2) To locate the disk/block device:

	cat /proc/partitions

major minor  #blocks  name

   8     0   78125000 sda
   8     1     192748 sda1
   8     2   77931315 sda2
 254     0    1048576 dm-0
 254     1   10485760 dm-1
 254     2    8388608 dm-2
 254     3   10485760 dm-3
 254     4   26214400 dm-4
 254     5   77931315 dm-5
 254     6    1048576 dm-6
 254     7   26214400 dm-7
 254     8   10485760 dm-8
 254     9   10485760 dm-9
 254    10    8388608 dm-10
 254    11     192748 dm-11
   8    16  244198584 sdb
   8    17  244196001 sdb1

 * On most of our single (internal) drive workstations,  
the drive will show up as device sdb. Note the 
size of the drive (244198584) for identification.

(3) create the filesystem and label:

sudo mkfs -t ext3 -L calusb /dev/sdb

mke2fs 1.38 (30-Jun-2005)
/dev/sdb is entire device, not just one partition!
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Filesystem label=calusb
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
48840704 inodes, 97677846 blocks
4883892 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
2981 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16384 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,        4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 36 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

(4) re-attach the drive to the workstation, Ubuntu will automount the drive. Create the scratch area and make the folder accessible by all:

	cd /media/calusb
	sudo mkdir /scratch
	sudo chmod 777 /scratch