How to Update newly created partition – How to Formatting a partition with file system

Updating a partition

After creating or deleting a partition the the changes will be effected in the partition table only after the restart of the system. But there is a way to avoid this circumstance. We can use partprobe or partx command to update the partition information without restarting the system.

Frirst check the newly created partition

[root@rahul /]# fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 17.2 GB, 17179869184 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2088 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000efa3d    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System /dev/sda1   *           1          26      204800   83  Linux Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary. /dev/sda2              26        1301    10240000   83  Linux /dev/sda3            1301        1562     2097152   82  Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda4            1562        2088     4228884    5  Extended /dev/sda5            1562        1626      517837+  82  Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda6            1627        1691      522081   8e  Linux LVM /dev/sda7            1692        1756      522081   8e  Linux LVM

Now update the partition using the following unix commands.

•  # partprobe /dev/sda

                Or

• #partx –a /dev/sda

                Or

• #kpartx /dev/sda

[root@rahul /]# partx -a /dev/sda BLKPG: Device or resource busy error adding partition 1 BLKPG: Device or resource busy error adding partition 2 BLKPG: Device or resource busy error adding partition 3 BLKPG: Device or resource busy error adding partition 4 BLKPG: Device or resource busy error adding partition 5 BLKPG: Device or resource busy error adding partition 6 BLKPG: Device or resource busy error adding partition 7 BLKPG: Device or resource busy error adding partition 8 [root@rahul /]#

[root@rahul /]# kpartx  /dev/sda sda1 : 0 409600 /dev/sda 2048 sda2 : 0 20480000 /dev/sda 411648 sda3 : 0 4194304 /dev/sda 20891648 sda4 : 0 2 /dev/sda 25085952 sda5 : 0 1035675 /dev/sda 25086015 sda6 : 0 1044162 /dev/sda 26121753 sda7 : 0 1044162 /dev/sda 27165978 sda8 : 0 1044162 /dev/sda 28210203 [root@rahul /]#

Note: In RHEl6 partprobe is not functioning properly, so it is recommended to use partx command only.

Now then we have learnt creating and updating a partition. Lets see how to format a partition with a particular file system

Formatting a partition with ext4  filesystem

After creating a partition we need to assign some file system to it so that we can start storing the data into it. To format a partition the following syntax is used.

• #mkfs.<file system type> <partition name>
• #mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda7 (where sda7 is our newly created partition)

[root@rahul /]# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda8 mke2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010) Filesystem label= OS type: Linux Block size=1024 (log=0) Fragment size=1024 (log=0) Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks 130560 inodes, 522080 blocks 26104 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user First data block=1 Maximum filesystem blocks=67633152 64 block groups 8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group 2040 inodes per group Superblock backups stored on blocks:                 8193, 24577, 40961, 57345, 73729, 204801, 221185, 401409 Writing inode tables: done                            Creating journal (8192 blocks): done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done This filesystem will be automatically checked every 39 mounts or 180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override. [root@rahul /]#

Likewise you can format the different partitions with different file systems like

• #mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda8

[root@rahul /]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda8 mke2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010) Filesystem label= OS type: Linux Block size=1024 (log=0) Fragment size=1024 (log=0) Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks 130560 inodes, 522080 blocks 26104 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user First data block=1 Maximum filesystem blocks=67633152 64 block groups 8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group 2040 inodes per group Superblock backups stored on blocks:                 8193, 24577, 40961, 57345, 73729, 204801, 221185, 401409 Writing inode tables: done                            Creating journal (8192 blocks): done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done This filesystem will be automatically checked every 39 mounts or 180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override. [root@rahul /]# ^C

•  #mkfs.vfat /dev/sda9

[root@rahul /]# mkfs.vfat /dev/sda8 mkfs.vfat 3.0.9 (31 Jan 2010)

Note : Even after formatting the partition we cannot add the data into the partition. In order to add the data in the partition it is required to be mounted.

•                                            How to mount a partition.

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