Linux Hard Disk Format Command

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CentOS, Debian / Ubuntu, Hardware, Linux

Q. I’ve installed a new 250GB SATA hard disk on our office CentOS Linux server. How do I format a hard disk under Linux operating system from a shell prompt?

A.. There are total 4 steps involved for hard disk upgrade and installation procedure:

  😱

 Step #1 : Partition the new disk using fdisk command

Following command will list all detected hard disks:
# fdisk -l | grep '^Disk'
Output:

Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
Disk /dev/sdb: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes

A device name refers to the entire hard disk. For more information see Linux partition naming convention and IDE drive mappings.
To partition the disk – /dev/sdb, enter:
# fdisk /dev/sdb
The basic fdisk commands you need are:

• m – print help
• p – print the partition table
• n – create a new partition
• d – delete a partition
• q – quit without saving changes
• w – write the new partition table and exit

Then press n, choose default primary and  then press  w to write to disk

Step#2 : Format the new disk using mkfs.ext3 command

To format Linux partitions using ext2fs on the new disk:
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

Step#3 : Mount the new disk using mount command

First create a mount point /disk1 and use mount command to mount /dev/sdb1, enter:
# mkdir /disk1
# mount /dev/sdb1 /disk1
# df -H

Step#4 : Update /etc/fstab file

Open /etc/fstab file, enter:
# vi /etc/fstab
Append as follows:

/dev/sdb1               /disk1           ext3    defaults        1 2

Save and close the file.

Task: Label the partition

You can label the partition using e2label. For example, if you want to label the new partition /backup, enter

# e2label /dev/sdb1 /backup

You can use label name insted of partition name to mount disk using /etc/fstab:

LABEL=/backup /disk1 ext3 defaults 1 2

Note: for disks > 2TB the above method does not work, so  follow this:

parted with gpt label

Create a partition using GPT format. I've chosen to use just 1 large partition that uses the whole disk.

root@turtle:~# parted /dev/sdb
GNU Parted 2.3
Using /dev/sdb
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print
Error: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label
(parted) mklabel gpt
(parted) mkpart
Partition name?  []?
File system type?  [ext2]? ext3
Start? 0%
End? 100%
(parted) print
Model: ATA ST3000DM001-1CH1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 3001GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
 1      1049kB  3001GB  3001GB

(parted) quit
Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.

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