fdisk

Jmcatch742 · 08-22-2004, 10:14 AM

Can somebody explain to me in detail what fdisk is, how do I get to it, and how do I work it? Thank you.

Jmcatch742

scuzzman · 08-22-2004, 10:20 AM

fdisk is a utility to create/delete/resize partitions
see here or here or here.

peace · 08-22-2004, 11:13 AM

Try:

man fdisk

Also check out cfdisk (a little more easy to use):

man cfdisk

<edit> By the way, both those programs are normally in /sbin/. </edit>

masand · 08-22-2004, 11:18 AM

hi there

no matter what u see about the help pages oin fdisk be sure to use very carefullly

i too have faced some problems with fdisk
also i have got to know that cfdisk is a better option ,thoough i haven't used it

regards
gaurav

Fred Caro · 08-16-2009, 12:03 PM

If only they used the same denotation, moreover make it plain, especially as it may ruin your os.

fred.

thorkelljarl · 08-16-2009, 12:13 PM

Getting to it...

In any linux installation or live-cd, open a terminal and with root privileges, type the command. It's use is frequently asked of poster to the forum in response to questions about partitioning problems, in the form of "fdisk -l", to list a partition table.

::: · 08-16-2009, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Can somebody explain to me in detail what fdisk is

fdisk is a partition program, i.e. you can create/delete partitions, change their id &c. on a given hard drive.

Quote:

[...], how do I get to it

- open terminal
- change to root
- type: fdisk -l
you'll get something like:

Code:

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1         123      987966   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda2             124         610     3911827+  83  Linux
/dev/hda3             611        1219     4891792+  83  Linux
/dev/hda4            1220        4865    29286495   83  Linux

see the 1st column, i.e. /dev/hdaX, where X is a nr.? hda means "hard drive a" (as opposed to "hard drive b, hard drive c", which i don't have). the numbers 1-4 are the partitions. so the output says i have one hard drive called hda with 4 partitions on it (hda1, hda2, hda3 and hda4), fdisk operates on hard drives not partitions.

Quote:

[...], and how do I work it?.

to manipulate hda i have to type, as root of course (indicated by '#'):

Code:

# fdisk /dev/hda

you'll see something like this:

Code:

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 4865.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help):

now press m for help, p for print partitions (which is essentially the same as fdisk -l). be sure to know what you want to do. for everything else see the man page ($ man fdisk). easy.

chrism01 · 08-16-2009, 06:25 PM

This is good from The Linux Doc Project: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/fdisk_partitioning.html

scottro11 · 08-16-2009, 06:29 PM

I have my own little page on it, that some have found helpful. It's very dated (using hdX nomenclature, rather than sdX), but...

http://home.roadrunner.com/~computertaijutsu/fdisk.html

Fred Caro · 08-17-2009, 11:33 AM

Dear scot,
now that makes sense, i.e., comprehensible by a non- expert, one question, however, does an extended partition, and that lies within, count as a mounted partition even though it might have a different name?

Many thanks, fred.

Wim Sturkenboom · 08-17-2009, 01:11 PM

I love it how 5 year old threads get revived. Are you working in the medical profession? If not, you missed your profession