How to create a primary NTFS partition on Raspberry Pi 3?

Question

Questions: How to create a primary NTFS partition on Raspberry Pi 3?

Context: I'm trying to create a new primary NTFS partition on an external drive on Raspberry Pi 3. Normally, I could use fdisk to do so, but on the Raspberry it doesn't give me the option to create a primary partition. That said, it does technically create a partition, but it doesn't give the option to change the file system type to NTFS. Furthermore, the newly created partition can only be seen by fdisk, so I can't even format the partition. Please see below for expected vs actual console output. Note that the fdisk version are identical.

Expected Output (Debian jessie):

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.25.2).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.


Command (m for help): n
Partition type
   p   primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
   e   extended (container for logical partitions)
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
First sector (2048-117231407, default 2048):
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-117231407, default 117231407): +1G

Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux' and of size 1 GiB.

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list all codes): l

 0  Empty           24  NEC DOS         81  Minix / old Lin bf  Solaris
 1  FAT12           27  Hidden NTFS Win 82  Linux swap / So c1  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
 2  XENIX root      39  Plan 9          83  Linux           c4  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
 3  XENIX usr       3c  PartitionMagic  84  OS/2 hidden C:  c6  DRDOS/sec (FAT-
 4  FAT16 <32M      40  Venix 80286     85  Linux extended  c7  Syrinx
 5  Extended        41  PPC PReP Boot   86  NTFS volume set da  Non-FS data
 6  FAT16           42  SFS             87  NTFS volume set db  CP/M / CTOS / .
 7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT 4d  QNX4.x          88  Linux plaintext de  Dell Utility
 8  AIX             4e  QNX4.x 2nd part 8e  Linux LVM       df  BootIt
 9  AIX bootable    4f  QNX4.x 3rd part 93  Amoeba          e1  DOS access
 a  OS/2 Boot Manag 50  OnTrack DM      94  Amoeba BBT      e3  DOS R/O
 b  W95 FAT32       51  OnTrack DM6 Aux 9f  BSD/OS          e4  SpeedStor
 c  W95 FAT32 (LBA) 52  CP/M            a0  IBM Thinkpad hi eb  BeOS fs
 e  W95 FAT16 (LBA) 53  OnTrack DM6 Aux a5  FreeBSD         ee  GPT
 f  W95 Ext'd (LBA) 54  OnTrackDM6      a6  OpenBSD         ef  EFI (FAT-12/16/
10  OPUS            55  EZ-Drive        a7  NeXTSTEP        f0  Linux/PA-RISC b
11  Hidden FAT12    56  Golden Bow      a8  Darwin UFS      f1  SpeedStor
12  Compaq diagnost 5c  Priam Edisk     a9  NetBSD          f4  SpeedStor
14  Hidden FAT16 <3 61  SpeedStor       ab  Darwin boot     f2  DOS secondary
16  Hidden FAT16    63  GNU HURD or Sys af  HFS / HFS+      fb  VMware VMFS
17  Hidden HPFS/NTF 64  Novell Netware  b7  BSDI fs         fc  VMware VMKCORE
18  AST SmartSleep  65  Novell Netware  b8  BSDI swap       fd  Linux raid auto
1b  Hidden W95 FAT3 70  DiskSecure Mult bb  Boot Wizard hid fe  LANstep
1c  Hidden W95 FAT3 75  PC/IX           be  Solaris boot    ff  BBT
1e  Hidden W95 FAT1 80  Old Minix

Actual Output (Raspbian):

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.25.2).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.


Command (m for help): n
Partition number (1-8, default 1): 1
First sector (0-250067790, default 0): 0
Last sector or +sectors or +size{K,M,G,T,P} (0-250067790, default 250067790): +1G

Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux native' and of size 1 GiB.

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list all codes): l

 0  Unassigned       4  SunOS usr        8  SunOS home      82  Linux swap
 1  Boot             5  Whole disk       9  SunOS alt secto 83  Linux native
 2  SunOS root       6  SunOS stand      a  SunOS cachefs   8e  Linux LVM
 3  SunOS swap       7  SunOS var        b  SunOS reserved  fd  Linux raid auto

Answer 1

Root cause: I think I accidentally deleted the MBR on the disk, and changed the disk label type from dos to sun. It looks like fdisk behaves different depending on the disk label type.

Solution: Plug the disk into a Windows system and initialized the disk with a MBR. This will change the disk label type back to dos. I tried doing this using fdisk in Linux, but it didn't seem to work. You can use fdisk -l to find out the Disklabel type being used.