where on /dev/ is a non-formatted external (USB) hard disk?
 

Hi,

First, please note I'm a newbie when you reply... :)

I have a new USB disk, on which I'd like to format a partition for backing up my Linux data. Part of the disk is formatted for NTFS (Windows) already, and I'd like to designate the remainder for linux. The problem is that I don't know what device to specify for the /sbin/fdisk command. I looked under /dev/ and there are a bunch of usbdevXXXXX (pasted below), however when I tried to do /sbin/fdisk /dev/usbdevXXXXX (for a few of them) I got e.g. "Unable to open /dev/usbdev1.4_ep00"

So my questions are:

1. Are the instructions here what I should follow (for CentOS): http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...t3-create.html

2. How do I find which device I should call the fdisk command with?

Thanks!!!
Dahlia.

====================================================

# ls /dev
adsp nvidia0 sdd2 tty36 usbdev1.6_ep02
audio nvidiactl sdd3 tty37 usbdev1.6_ep82
autofs nvram sde tty38 usbdev1.7_ep00
bus oldmem sequencer tty39 usbdev1.7_ep02
cdrom par0 sequencer2 tty4 usbdev1.7_ep82
cdrom-sr0 parport0 sg0 tty40 usbdev1.8_ep00
cdrom-sr1 parport1 sg1 tty41 usbdev1.8_ep01
cdrw parport2 sg2 tty42 usbdev1.8_ep81
cdrw-sr1 parport3 sg3 tty43 usbdev1.8_ep82
cdwriter port sg4 tty44 usbdev2.1_ep00
cdwriter-sr1 ppp sg5 tty45 usbdev2.1_ep81
console ptmx sg6 tty46 usbdev3.1_ep00
core pts shm tty47 usbdev3.1_ep81
cpu ram snapshot tty48 usbdev4.1_ep00
disk ram0 snd tty49 usbdev4.1_ep81
dsp ram1 stderr tty5 usbdev5.1_ep00
dvd ram10 stdin tty50 usbdev5.1_ep81
dvdrw ram11 stdout tty51 usbdev6.1_ep00
dvdrw-sr1 ram12 systty tty52 usbdev6.1_ep81
dvd-sr0 ram13 tty tty53 usbdev7.1_ep00
dvd-sr1 ram14 tty0 tty54 usbdev7.1_ep81
dvdwriter ram15 tty1 tty55 usbdev8.1_ep00
dvdwriter-sr1 ram2 tty10 tty56 usbdev8.1_ep81
fd ram3 tty11 tty57 usbdev8.2_ep00
full ram4 tty12 tty58 usbdev8.2_ep81
gpmctl ram5 tty13 tty59 usbdev8.3_ep00
hpet ram6 tty14 tty6 usbdev8.3_ep81
initctl ram7 tty15 tty60 vcs
input ram8 tty16 tty61 vcs1
kmsg ram9 tty17 tty62 vcs2
ksm ramdisk tty18 tty63 vcs3
kvm random tty19 tty7 vcs4
log rawctl tty2 tty8 vcs5
loop0 root tty20 tty9 vcs6
loop1 rtc tty21 ttyS0 vcs7
loop2 scd0 tty22 ttyS1 vcsa
loop3 scd1 tty23 ttyS2 vcsa1
loop4 sda tty24 ttyS3 vcsa2
loop5 sda1 tty25 urandom vcsa3
loop6 sda2 tty26 usbdev1.1_ep00 vcsa4
loop7 sdb tty27 usbdev1.1_ep81 vcsa5
lp0 sdb1 tty28 usbdev1.2_ep00 vcsa6
MAKEDEV sdb2 tty29 usbdev1.2_ep81 vcsa7
mapper sdb3 tty3 usbdev1.3_ep00 vmci
mcelog sdb4 tty30 usbdev1.3_ep81 vmmon
md0 sdb5 tty31 usbdev1.4_ep00 vmnet0
mem sdb6 tty32 usbdev1.4_ep81 VolGroup01
mixer sdc tty33 usbdev1.5_ep00 vsock
net sdd tty34 usbdev1.5_ep81 X0R
null sdd1 tty35 usbdev1.6_ep00 zero

Unplug the device. And then plug it back in. Then type dmesg. Somewhere it should say "usb device sdX" or "SCSI device sdX".

Thanks! Here are the last few lines of the output I got from dmesg command - I didn't find something that precisely fits your description so am wondering how to continue (the hard disk is indeed a LaCie big disk quadra):

usb 1-3: USB disconnect, address 8
usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9
usb 1-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
scsi11 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 9
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
input: LaCie big disk quadra as /class/input/input6
input: USB HID v1.11 Device [LaCie big disk quadra] on usb-0000:00:1a.7-3

it may have mounted it at /media/disk, so you could just type mount to find it if that's the case.

Otherwise try fdisk -l as root and you should be able to find it.

Thanks, fdisk -l did it; it's sdd
cool!