Formatting a Partition

shadin · 07-25-2006, 09:02 PM

I've made a new logical partition on my drive, which is /dev/sdb8. I've only got 20GB for / so I made a new partition to mount /usr/local/games on for installing Doom3, Quake4, and other Linux native games that use this directory.

Whenever I attempt to format the partition with mkfs.xfs /dev/sdb8, I get the following error:

Code:

mkfs.xfs: cannot open /dev/sdb8: No such device or address

Am I missing a step here? I've never worked with partitions after installation, so apparently I don't understand it as well as I thought?

gilead · 07-25-2006, 09:05 PM

When you run cat /proc/partitions or fdisk -l /dev/sdb - is sdb8 listed?

shadin · 07-25-2006, 09:12 PM

It is not listed for cat /proc/partitions.

Code:

root@shodan:~# cat /proc/partitions
major minor  #blocks  name

   8     0   72613056 sda
   8     1   10490413 sda1
   8     2   62115322 sda2
   8    16  244198584 sdb
   8    17          1 sdb1
   8    21    2000029 sdb5
   8    22   20000893 sdb6
   8    23   20000893 sdb7

However, it is listed for fdisk -l /dev/sdb.

Code:

root@shodan:~# fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1        8341    66999051    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5               1         249     2000029+  82  Linux swap
/dev/sdb6   *         250        2739    20000893+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb7            2740        5229    20000893+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb8            5230        8341    24997108+  83  Linux

shadin · 07-25-2006, 10:10 PM

Well, I fixed it. All I needed to do was reboot.

It's amazing how I always forget to do that since switching to Slackware from Windows..

cwwilson721 · 07-25-2006, 10:26 PM

Yeah, when you mess with partition stuff it's usually recommended to reboot....

I think we've all done that.