Adding a partition to a USB hard drive

Robhogg · 11-11-2009, 12:55 PM

I have been asked by a customer to set up a partition on a 1TB Western Digital USB hard drive, to use for backups from their server. The machine is a Sparc SunFire V210, running Solaris 10.

The disk has (so I am told), two Windows partitions already set up (1GB and 400GB). The Solaris machine can see the disk, but does not see the other partitions. On the other hand, it does not seem to see the whole disk - the size given by fdisk is 60801 cylinders of 16065 (512b) blocks, so:

(60801 * 16065) / 2 = 488384032.5KB = 465.8GB

As this is a little short of 1TB, I'm wondering whether Solaris is showing me just the unpartitioned space?

Is it feasible for me to create a 200GB partition on this disk (as they're requesting), and leave the rest of it free for use by other operating systems?

Thanks,
Rob

The output from rmformat and fdisk are below:

Code:

bash-3.00# rmformat
Looking for devices...
     1. Logical Node: /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2
        Physical Node: /pci@1e,600000/ide@d/sd@0,0
        Connected Device: TEAC     DV-28E-N         1.6A
        Device Type: DVD Reader
     2. Logical Node: /dev/rdsk/c3t0d0s2
        Physical Node: /pci@1e,600000/usb@a/device@1/storage@0/disk@0,0
        Connected Device: WD       My Book          1028
        Device Type: Removable
bash-3.00# fdisk /dev/rdsk/c3t0d0s2
No fdisk table exists. The default partition for the disk is:

  a 100% "SOLARIS System" partition

Type "y" to accept the default partition,  otherwise type "n" to edit the
 partition table.
n
             Total disk size is 60801 cylinders
             Cylinder size is 16065 (512 byte) blocks

                                               Cylinders
      Partition   Status    Type          Start   End   Length    %
      =========   ======    ============  =====   ===   ======   ===




WARNING: no partitions are defined!

SELECT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
   1. Create a partition
   2. Specify the active partition
   3. Delete a partition
   4. Change between Solaris and Solaris2 Partition IDs
   5. Exit (update disk configuration and exit)
   6. Cancel (exit without updating disk configuration)
Enter Selection: 6

bash-3.00# uname -a
SunOS nctalis 5.10 Generic_118833-17 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-V210
bash-3.00#

lewc · 11-11-2009, 04:47 PM

in a word yes, this can be done as you have stated that there is only 401gb used of a 1tb disk. Try not to use fdisk or sfdisk, I prefer cfdisk or the gui program gparted works just as well, also before continuing check the disk in a windows machine as it m be your friend or inadvertently you have caused some corruption of the partition table

Robhogg · 11-12-2009, 06:51 AM

Thanks for the reply.

There's no GUI (this is a database server). I can ask the customer to check the drive, though can't really do it myself (I'm in Birmingham - the server and drive are in Dublin).

Would cfdisk work, if I could get permission to install it? I have found reference to using it in Linux on sparc-based systems (e.g. here), but not in Solaris.

lewc · 11-12-2009, 08:14 AM

there is a cfdisk for solaris as I have administered solaris before, im quite sure its stock as in vanilla as in comes with solaris.

Are you positive his system supports a 1tb drive?

Are you positive it is a 1tb drive?

Based on the output are you sure the partitions mentioned are/were on the drive ever?

DO NOT CHANGE A THING HE MAY SUE YOU IF YOU CHANGE HIS DRIVE AND LOOSE HIS DATA!!!

if you cannot answer all three questions refund for the job and move on, if you have a maintainence contract either get the drive to yourself or go to the customer.