Hi everyone, I have two SATA disks, 80G and 1T. Using "df" command we can see the all partitions:

/dev/sda3 6.7G 2.5G 3.9G 40% /
tmpfs 1.7G 0 1.7G 0% /lib/init/rw
udev 1.7G 220K 1.7G 1% /dev
tmpfs 1.7G 172K 1.7G 1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda7 14G 5.4G 7.7G 42% /usr
/dev/sda6 19G 8.9G 8.6G 51% /home
/dev/sdb1 40G 21G 19G 53% /media/Documents
/dev/sdb2 40G 7.0G 33G 18% /media/Software
/dev/sdb3 98G 67G 31G 69% /media/Video
/dev/sdb4 293G 227G 67G 78% /media/Video2
/dev/sda5 20G 11G 9.2G 54% /media/home_win

Just as we see above, I have four partitions in my second disk. However, there is still unformatted part in my second disk, on which I wanna create a new ext3 partition. "cfdisk" is the first software coming into my thought. Unfortunately, cfdisk couldn't work.

#cfdisk /dev/sda
cfdisk (util-linux-ng 2.17.2)

Disk Drive: /dev/sda
Size: 80026361856 bytes, 80.0 GB
Heads: 255 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 9729

Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sda1 Boot Primary NTFS [^A] 15726.74
sda5 Logical NTFS [^B] 20974.47
sda6 Logical Linux ext3 20003.89
sda7 Logical Linux ext3 15002.92
sda3 Primary Linux ext3 7304.05
sda4 Primary Linux swap / Solaris 1011.71


It is all right.
#cfdisk /dev/sdb
cfdisk (util-linux-ng 2.17.2)

Disk Drive: /dev/sdb
Size: 1000204886016 bytes, 1000.2 GB
Heads: 255 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 121601

Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sdb1 Primary SFS 1000202.28


I don't think it's correct....

Could anyone tell me how to deal with this problem? I switched to different softwares,such as fdisk,kpartition,gparted and parted, but they also couldn't detect the missing partitions in my second disk

Hi,

There is no problem

sdb1 Primary SFS 1000202.28

SFS is an existing filesystem type (Self-certifying File System - Wiki).

Someone (you?) did put that on that disk at one time or another.

Here's another link: Filesystems HOWTO - TLDP

Hope this helps.

Hi, thanks for your reply!

I did put four ntfs partition through my Winodws xp, which is shown in df command as /dev/sdb[1-4]. I am wondering why cfdisk just shows one partion but not four partitions?

Hi,

First of all: I don't have any experience with SFS and do not know the ins and outs.

I assume(!) SFS creates one container which holds all other information/partitions.

If all the SFS tools are in place you will be able to see its full content. If you look at this disk at a low(er)-level (fdisk,cfdisk, etc) you will only see the container.

Hope this helps.

It seems you are right, druuna. I google "linux sfs" and find some website discussing about the same problem. However, they didn't give the solution to this problem. I am wondering how I could change SFS filesystem to normal ntfs filesystem, just like the ntfs partitions in my first disk.
what's more, how could I create a new ext3 partition in the second disk?

Hi,

I don't think you can change/move the content of the SFS container (although there might be a SFS tool that can).

You can remove the container and set up whatever you want/need using the available tools (parted/cfdisk etc). But you will loose all that is on the disk!!

How to actually do this depends on the tool you choose.

Here are 2 links how to do this with:
- fdisk: Partitioning with fdisk
- cfdisk: Partitioning Using cfdisk

Hope this helps

Of course I don't want to lose all contents on my disk. I just wanna create a new partition on my second disk.
I once wanted to create a ntfs partition through my windows xp and then use cfdisk to format it into ext3. However I found I couldn't detect the ntfs partition therefore gave up.
Why does linux choose such wield filesystem SFS?

Hi,

I doubt it if "linux" choose SFS by itself. I have never seen it used (not in the unix or linux world) in all the years I work with either.

I do believe that 1 of 2 scenario's could have happened:
1) Whoever decided to set SFS as partition type did so with a specific reason (I.e: wanted to use SFS).
2) A mistake was made when setting the partition type.

Ext2/3/4 and reiserfs are the types that are normally ("automatically") used in linux.

Hopefully you are still able to make a backup or move the data to another disk. Once that is done you can repartition and restore the data once that is done.

Hope this helps.

Dear drunna, thank you very much for your patience!!

I am the owner of this computer but I never decided to use SFS as partition type( I even don't what it's!). I just created four ntfs partition in windows and mounted them in linux, just like what I have done before in single disk.

how could I set the partition type manually? The data in the second disk is huge(about 320G) and no empty room could be made.

Hi,

You cannot just set a different partition type, the underlying structure is unique for each partition type.

You also mention creating these partitions using windows, you might try and see what options that tool has (I don't use windows and cannot help you there). Maybe partition magic has an option that can do this?

Dear Druuna, I think I have figured out the problem. I switched to my winodws and found the the sencond disk is a dynmaic disk!! Tha't why linux treat it as a SFS filesystem. Therefore, this solution to this problem is just to change the type of the second disk. You are right.

Changing dynamic disk to basic disk is so horribel that I haven't finished now....