There are different options to create or manage partitions under Linux – Parted is one of them. This note describes its usage and the use case when creating a new partition table. Use parted interactively to enter commands one at a time. Include only the device as an argument to invoke interactive mode.
Creating a partition using parted
1. Select the hard disk to be partitioned
Select the disk on which the partition is being created, in the below example /dev/sdb is being partitioned. You can select the disk in below given two ways.
# parted /dev/sdb GNU Parted 3.1 Using /dev/sdb Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands. (parted)
or
# parted GNU Parted 3.1 Using /dev/sda Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands. (parted) select /dev/sdb Using /dev/sdb (parted)
It is possible to execute “help” to see the various options provided in parted command
2. Set partition table type
The following example creates a new partition table by using the mklabel command. The disk label type must be one of the following: aix, amiga, bsd, dvh, gpt, mac, msdos, pc98, sun, or loop.
(parted) help mklabel mklabel,mktable LABEL-TYPE create a new disklabel (partition table) LABEL-TYPE is one of: aix, amiga, bsd, dvh, gpt, mac, msdos, pc98, sun, loop
In the above output, it is possible to see that different LABEL-TYPEs are supported in parted. It is important to note that one will require to use msdos as LABEL-TYPE for generic Linux.
(parted) mklabel msdos Warning: The existing disk label on /dev/sdb will be destroyed and all data on this disk will be lost. Do you want to continue? Yes/No? Yes
3. Check free space and existing partitions
To check free space and any existing partitions on the disk use the print sub-command. As you can see 21.5GB space is free on the disk and no partition is created yet on the disk.
(parted) print free
Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 21.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
32.3kB 21.5GB 21.5GB Free Space (parted) print Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 21.5GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags (parted)
4. Creating Primary or Logical Partition in Selected Disk Using mkpart
One can create either Primary or Logical partitions using mkpart command. Options can be primary and logical respectively. Example for both options are shown as below (we will create 2 partitions of 200MB each as primary and logical partition) :
a. Creating primary partition
(parted) mkpart primary File system type? [ext2]? ext4 Start? 0 End? 200MB Warning: The resulting partition is not properly aligned for best performance. Ignore/Cancel? I
(parted) print Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 21.5GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 512B 200MB 200MB primary
b. Creating logical partition
(parted) mkpart logical parted: invalid token: logical Partition type? primary/extended? extended Start? 201M End? 402M
(parted) print Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 21.5GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 512B 200MB 200MB primary 2 201MB 402MB 200MB extended lba
Remove a Partition Using rm Command
One can also delete an existing partition using “rm” command, as shown in below example we have 2 partitions with number 1 and 2.
(parted) print Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 21.5GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 512B 200MB 200MB primary 2 201MB 402MB 200MB extended lba
To delete partition 2:
(parted) rm Partition number? 2
Verify that you can see only the partition number 1 now.
(parted) print Model: VMware, VMware Virtual S (scsi) Disk /dev/sdb: 21.5GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags: Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 512B 200MB 200MB primary