Partitioning and Formatting Second Hard Drive - (ext3)

by Jeff Hunter, Sr. Database Administrator

Overview
This article presents the commands used to partition and format a second hard dr
ive in Linux using the ext3 file system. For the purpose of this example, I inst
alled a second hard drive in a Red Had Linux system where the drive is recognize
d as /dev/hdb. I want to make only one partition on this hard drive which will b
e /dev/hdb1.
fdisk
First, you will need to run the fdisk command in order to partition the disk. Fo
r this example, I only want to create one ext3 partition. Here is an example ses
sion:
[root@linux2 etc]# fdisk /dev/hdb
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklab
el
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 4865.

There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-4865, default 1): 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-4865, default 4865): 4865
Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): 83
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
Create ext3 File System
The next step is to create an ext3 file system on the new partition. Provided wi
th the distribution is a script named /sbin/mkfs.ext3. Here is an example sessio
n of using the mkfs.ext3 script:
[root@linux2 root]# mkfs.ext3 -b 4096 /dev/hdb1
mke2fs 1.27 (8-Mar-2002)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
4889248 inodes, 9769520 blocks
488476 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
299 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16352 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (8192 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
This filesystem will be automatically checked every 36 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
Mounting the File System
Now that the new hard drive is partition and formated, the last step is to mount
the new drive. For this example, I will be mounting the new hard drive on the d
irectory /db.
NOTE: You will first need to create the /db directory before mouting the disk! (
e.g. mkdir /db)
What I typically do is to edit the /etc/fstab file and add an entry for the new
drive. For my example, I will create the /dev/hdb1 entry as follows:
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hdb1 /db ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0
0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0
After making the entry in the /etc/fstab file, it is now just a matter of mounti
ng the disk:
[root@linux2 /]# mount /db
[root@linux2 /]# df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda3 37191660 11016692 24285724 32% /
/dev/hda1 101089 12130 83740 13% /boot
none 515524 0 515524 0% /dev/shm
/dev/hdb1 38464340 32828 36477608 1% /db