thanks... mke2fs (or mkfs.ext2) was the command I was looking for. turned out that some time spent googling gave faster results than forums. oh well...

@stevecrye : I have only taken Calculus I and II, Differential equations and Linear Algebra I and II. next semester, I only have physics, chemistry and organic chemistry... no math
(and yeah, it =69. I found this in a "security" check on some site. I was able to pass it, though it did filter out ALL the bots trying to access it!)