Fomat hard disk in linux using fdisk
Written by sdx Wednesday, 15 May 2013 16:25
Following command will list all detected hard disks:
# fdisk -l | grep '^Disk'
Output:
Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
Disk /dev/sdb: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
A device name refers to the entire hard disk. For more information see Linux partition naming convention and IDE drive mappings.
To partition the disk - /dev/sdb, enter:
# fdisk /dev/sdb
The basic fdisk commands you need are:
* m - print help
* p - print the partition table
* n - create a new partition
* d - delete a partition
* q - quit without saving changes
* w - write the new partition table and exit
Step#2 : Format the new disk using mkfs.ext3 command
To format Linux partitions using ext2fs on the new disk:
# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
Step#3 : Mount the new disk using mount command
First create a mount point /disk1 and use mount command to mount /dev/sdb1, enter:
# mkdir /disk1
# mount /dev/sdb1 /disk1
# df -H
Step#4 : Update /etc/fstab file
Open /etc/fstab file, enter:
# vi /etc/fstab
Append as follows:
/dev/sdb1 /disk1 ext3 defaults 1 2
Save and close the file.
Task: Label the partition
You can label the partition using e2label. For example, if you want to label the new partition /backup, enter
# e2label /dev/sdb1 /backup
You can use label name insted of partition name to mount disk using /etc/fstab:
LABEL=/backup /disk1 ext3 defaults 1 2
