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
Step#2 : Format the new disk using mkfs.ext3 command
To format Linux partitions using ext2fs on the new disk:
# mkfs.ext3 /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
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- Last Updated: 03/10/08
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
yah thats good for understand………
i have 48TB storage server in raid 5, how do i format this server?
Aniket,
Use LVM directly or read this tutorial which explains how to create partition larger than 2TB
How do I format a harddisk using linux system call
hi,
thank you fro valuable information
how to format a disk by cpp programe?is there any sample code ?
Hi,
Thank you very much this valuable information.
Regards,
Nagarajan.S.G
/dev/sdb1 /disk1 ext3 defaults 1 2
The above line what is mean by defaults and what is 1 2 ?
can u explain those two things !
IN my system both WINDOWS-XP and LINUX , I’ve installed. after that
I want to format the linux OS from my system.
so please send to me tricks or method on Email addr., so i can remove LUNUX OS from my system.
BY both method (i)Text command and
(ii)without Text command.
verrrrrrrrry useful i’ve searched for 2 days for this thanks
Hi,
Thank you very much this valuable information. Very useful this
Thanks
B. Sathish.
I have installed CentOS ..
now i want my disk to be fully formatted like a new one. with no files on it..
i remember doing it by booting in DOS mode in Win98..
Please tell how can i do it..
Thank you.
nice and clear.
Excellent and easy. Thanx
Nice information and esp. the link that you posted for Anikat. Information really useful pal. Thanks a ton..
Regards
Charanjit Singh Cheema
Thank you, this is the kind of fast reference that one is always looking for
Well, this saved me an hour of banging my head against the wall… well written! thanks!
Yes. Very useful. Thanks.
help me to see the out put of the php programe, i have php 2007 developer
god bless you
Very simple and useful, thanks :)
Great. Searched for a long time to find this, very well done. Thanks!
Can any one tell me what the mean by 1,2 in default and when i create a raid partition is there any change in default charcter or it is sama as ” default” .