LinuxQuestions.org - fdisk paritioning help

Okay, thats no problem. As long as your hard drive is connected correctly you should be able to run

Code:

fdisk /dev/hdb

to enter the fdisk environment. You can use "p" (thats just p on a line by itself) to list the current setup on that drive. The first thing you will want to do is use "d" to delete the existing partitions. Then you will want to use "n" to create a new partition using the default starting and ending blocks. This will give you one partition that consumes the entire drive. Once created you will need to use "t" to change the ID for that partition. You can use "l" to list all the available IDs. It will probably default to the correct ID though, 83. When you are done you can use "w" to write the changes to your disc. I simiulated the process on my pc so here it is:

Code:

root@marXubuntu:~# fdisk /dev/hda



The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 4864.

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): p



Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hda1              1          65      522081  83  Linux

/dev/hda2              66        4733    37495710  83  Linux

/dev/hda3            4734        4864    1052257+  82  Linux swap / Solaris



Command (m for help): d

Partition number (1-4): 1



Command (m for help): d

Partition number (1-4): 2



Command (m for help): d

Selected partition 3



Command (m for help): p



Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System



Command (m for help): n

Command action

  e  extended

  p  primary partition (1-4)

p

Partition number (1-4): 1

First cylinder (1-4864, default 1): 

Using default value 1

Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-4864, default 4864): 

Using default value 4864



Command (m for help): p



Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hda1              1        4864    39070048+  83  Linux



Command (m for help): t

Selected partition 1

Hex code (type L to list codes): l



 0  Empty          1e  Hidden W95 FAT1 80  Old Minix      be  Solaris boot  

 1  FAT12          24  NEC DOS        81  Minix / old Lin bf  Solaris        

 2  XENIX root      39  Plan 9          82  Linux swap / So c1  DRDOS/sec (FAT-

 3  XENIX usr      3c  PartitionMagic  83  Linux          c4  DRDOS/sec (FAT-

 4  FAT16 <32M      40  Venix 80286    84  OS/2 hidden C:  c6  DRDOS/sec (FAT-

 5  Extended        41  PPC PReP Boot  85  Linux extended  c7  Syrinx        

 6  FAT16          42  SFS            86  NTFS volume set da  Non-FS data    

 7  HPFS/NTFS      4d  QNX4.x          87  NTFS volume set db  CP/M / CTOS / .

 8  AIX            4e  QNX4.x 2nd part 88  Linux plaintext de  Dell Utility  

 9  AIX bootable    4f  QNX4.x 3rd part 8e  Linux LVM      df  BootIt        

 a  OS/2 Boot Manag 50  OnTrack DM      93  Amoeba          e1  DOS access    

 b  W95 FAT32      51  OnTrack DM6 Aux 94  Amoeba BBT      e3  DOS R/O        

 c  W95 FAT32 (LBA) 52  CP/M            9f  BSD/OS          e4  SpeedStor      

 e  W95 FAT16 (LBA) 53  OnTrack DM6 Aux a0  IBM Thinkpad hi eb  BeOS fs        

 f  W95 Ext'd (LBA) 54  OnTrackDM6      a5  FreeBSD        ee  EFI GPT        

10  OPUS            55  EZ-Drive        a6  OpenBSD        ef  EFI (FAT-12/16/

11  Hidden FAT12    56  Golden Bow      a7  NeXTSTEP        f0  Linux/PA-RISC b

12  Compaq diagnost 5c  Priam Edisk    a8  Darwin UFS      f1  SpeedStor      

14  Hidden FAT16 <3 61  SpeedStor      a9  NetBSD          f4  SpeedStor      

16  Hidden FAT16    63  GNU HURD or Sys ab  Darwin boot    f2  DOS secondary  

17  Hidden HPFS/NTF 64  Novell Netware  b7  BSDI fs        fd  Linux raid auto

18  AST SmartSleep  65  Novell Netware  b8  BSDI swap      fe  LANstep        

1b  Hidden W95 FAT3 70  DiskSecure Mult bb  Boot Wizard hid ff  BBT            

1c  Hidden W95 FAT3 75  PC/IX          

Hex code (type L to list codes): 83



Command (m for help): p



Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hda1              1        4864    39070048+  83  Linux



Command (m for help):

keep in mind that you will use "/dev/hdb" instead of "/dev/hdb"

Once the partition is in place you will need to use mke2fs to format the partiton. Run

Code:

mke2fs -j /dev/hdb1

Once the partition is in place you will need to add a line to your /etc/fstab that will automatically mount this drive when you boot. Add the follwing line (or something similar):

Code:

/dev/hdb1 /media/home ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1

And good luck.

~Justin