fdisk command in Linux is used to create and delete partitions in Linux of Hardisk. Its know as format disk, You can use it for manipulating disk partition table as well.
With the help of fdisk command you can view, create, resize, delete, change, copy and move patitions on a hard drive.
You can create a maximum four primary partition and unlimited logical partition. Creating logical partition depends on the size of the hard disk.
You will get a very simple and user freindly text based menu driven interface.
You can use this tool for creating space for new partitions, organizing space for new drives, re-organizing an old drive and copying or moving data to new disks.
Article Contents:
- View/List All Disk Partition in Linux
- View Partition on a Specific Disk
- Check all Available fdisk Commands
- Print partition table:
- fdisk command to create a partition in Linux
- mkfs command to format a Partition in Linux
- Check the Size of Partition
- Delete a partition in Linux by fdisk command
- Conclusion
View/List All Disk Partition in Linux
If you want to make changes on the hard disk, You must know the structure of this hard disk.
For Example, how many hard disks are connected with my system? how many partitions is the exit? what is the size of partitions? what is the filesystem of existing partition? and much more.
Now your turn to make point, use the fdisk command followed by -l option to display all connected hard disk, Partitions, size etc.
The partitions are displayed by their device’s names. For example: /dev/sda, /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc.
fdisk -l
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 32 GiB, 34359738368 bytes, 67108864 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0xed248e8f Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 2099199 2097152 1G 83 Linux /dev/sda2 2099200 67108863 65009664 31G 8e Linux LVM Disk /dev/sdb: 8 GiB, 8589934592 bytes, 16777216 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk /dev/mapper/cl-root: 28.9 GiB, 31058821120 bytes, 60661760 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk /dev/mapper/cl-swap: 2.1 GiB, 2222981120 bytes, 4341760 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes [root@localhost ~]#
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 32 GiB, 34359738368 bytes, 67108864 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0xed248e8f Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 2099199 2097152 1G 83 Linux /dev/sda2 2099200 67108863 65009664 31G 8e Linux LVM Disk /dev/sdb: 8 GiB, 8589934592 bytes, 16777216 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk /dev/mapper/cl-root: 28.9 GiB, 31058821120 bytes, 60661760 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk /dev/mapper/cl-swap: 2.1 GiB, 2222981120 bytes, 4341760 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes [root@localhost ~]#
In the above example, I had 2 devices connected to my Linux system, /dev/sda and /dev/sdb
View Partition on a Specific Disk
If you have multiple hard disk devices connected on your system, and you want to view all partitions of specific hard disk use the option ‘-l‘ followed by device name.
It may be /dev/sda or /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc etc. For example, I want to display all disk partitions of device /dev/sda, following syntax is perfect for me.
fdisk -l /dev/sda
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sda Disk /dev/sda: 32 GiB, 34359738368 bytes, 67108864 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0xed248e8f Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 2099199 2097152 1G 83 Linux /dev/sda2 2099200 67108863 65009664 31G 8e Linux LVM [root@localhost ~]#
Check all Available fdisk Commands
As I have told you before in this article fdisk command in Linux has text based menu driven interface, It is necessary that I must know the menus/commands.
To see all the command which are available under fdisk command you can use /dev/sda partition with fdisk command.
When you use specific device, then you can type “m” keyword and hit enter all the command/menus/options will print in the terminal.
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk /dev/sda Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.32.1). Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. Be careful before using the write command. Command (m for help): m Help: DOS (MBR) a toggle a bootable flag b edit nested BSD disklabel c toggle the dos compatibility flag Generic d delete a partition F list free unpartitioned space l list known partition types n add a new partition p print the partition table t change a partition type v verify the partition table i print information about a partition Misc m print this menu u change display/entry units x extra functionality (experts only) Script I load disk layout from sfdisk script file O dump disk layout to sfdisk script file Save & Exit w write table to disk and exit q quit without saving changes Create a new label g create a new empty GPT partition table G create a new empty SGI (IRIX) partition table o create a new empty DOS partition table s create a new empty Sun partition table Command (m for help):
Print partition table:
You want print all partition table of hard disk, then you must be on command mode of specific hard disk say /dev/sda. Use following command to select the hard disk and get command mode.
#fdisk /dev/sda
OR
$ sudo fdisk /dev/sda
From the command mode, enter ‘p‘ instead of ‘m‘ as we did earlier. As I enter ‘p‘, it will print the specific /dev/sda partition table.
Command (m for help): p
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk /dev/sda Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.32.1). Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. Be careful before using the write command. Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sda: 32 GiB, 34359738368 bytes, 67108864 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0xed248e8f Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 2099199 2097152 1G 83 Linux /dev/sda2 2099200 67108863 65009664 31G 8e Linux LVM Command (m for help):
fdisk command to create a partition in Linux
If you have new hard disk connected on the system, want to use it. You will have to create partition first. You can’t store data inside hard disk without creating partition.
If you’ve free space left on one of your device say /dev/sdb (old hard disk connected to the system) and would like to create a new partition under it.
Then you must be select hard disk first by using following command:
#fdisk /dev/sdb
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.32.1). Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. Be careful before using the write command. Device does not contain a recognized partition table. Created a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0xc11739be. Command (m for help):
When you access the command mode of /dev/sdb, now press “n” command to create a new partition under /dev/sdb with specific size. You can see in the following result.
When you are creating a new partition, You will have to select one of two options ‘extended‘ or ‘primary‘ partition creation.
Press ‘e‘ for extended partition and ‘p‘ for primary partition. Now you will enter following two inputs.
- First cylinder number of the partition to be create.
- Last cylinder number of the partition to be created (Last cylinder, +cylinders or +size).
You can enter the size of cylinder by adding “+5000M” in last cylinder. Here, ‘+‘ means addition and 5000M means size of new partition (i.e 5000MB).
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb
Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.32.1).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.
Device does not contain a recognized partition table.
Created a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0xc11739be.
Command (m for help): n
Partition type
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended (container for logical partitions)
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 1):
First sector (2048-16777215, default 2048):
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-16777215, default 16777215): +5000MB
Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux' and of size 4.7 GiB.
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
[root@localhost ~]#
Please keep in mind that after creating a new partition, you should run ‘w‘ command to alter and save new changes to partition table and finally reboot your system to verify newly created partition.
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sdb Disk /dev/sdb: 8 GiB, 8589934592 bytes, 16777216 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0xc11739be Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sdb1 2048 9766911 9764864 4.7G 83 Linux [root@localhost ~]#
mkfs command to format a Partition in Linux
When you create a new partition, what would be the next step. Can you store data after creating partition?
No, you can’t store data inside new partition whithout formating it. So You can use mkfs command to format the newly created partition.
Type the following command in the terminal to format a partition. Here /dev/sdb1 is my newly created partition.
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1
[root@localhost ~]# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1 mke2fs 1.44.6 (5-Mar-2019) Creating filesystem with 1220608 4k blocks and 305216 inodes Filesystem UUID: 702bd125-5407-4546-965a-e171e63b927d Superblock backups stored on blocks: 32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736 Allocating group tables: done Writing inode tables: done Creating journal (16384 blocks): done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done [root@localhost ~]#
Check the Size of Partition
All done with new created partition. You have created a partition and want to know the partition size. After formatting new partition, check the size of that partition using flag ‘s‘ (displays size in blocks) with fdisk command.
See the example below
fdisk -s /dev/sdb1
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -s /dev/sdb 8388608 [root@localhost ~]#
Delete a partition in Linux by fdisk command
“d” option is used to delete the partition. I have created new partion in linux size of 5GB in previous section. This partition name is /dev/sdb1. I want to delete it.
This partition belongs to /dev/sdb hard disk. So first I have to enter fdisk command mode with this device. I am going to use the following command.
You can follow the same steps. Be attentive at the time of hard disk selection.
#fdisk /dev/sdb
Next, enter ‘d‘ keyword to delete any given partition name from the system.
When you enter ‘d‘, You may ask to enter partition number. As I want to delete from /dev/sdb hard disk.
Suppose I want to delete /dev/sdb1 then I must enter number ‘1‘ here. it will delete partition number ‘1‘ (i.e. /dev/sdb1) disk and shows free space in partition table.
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.32.1). Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. Be careful before using the write command. Command (m for help): d Selected partition 1 Partition 1 has been deleted. Command (m for help): w The partition table has been altered. Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table. Syncing disks. [root@localhost ~]#
Do not forget to enter ‘w‘ to write a table to disk and exit after making new alterations to the partition table. The new changes would only take place after the next reboot of the system.
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sdb Disk /dev/sdb: 8 GiB, 8589934592 bytes, 16777216 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0xc11739be [root@localhost ~]#
Conclusion
I’ve tried my best to cover most of the basic uses of fdisk command in Linux, but still, fdisk contains a variety of other expert commands you can use them by entering ‘x‘.
For more detailed information, you can check the manual page. To display the manual page use man command from the terminal.
If I’ve missed any important command, please do share it with me via the comment section.