Using fdisk to create and list partitions on a hard drive is very easy. This is a very useful skill.
To list free space on a hard disk, load fdisk.
[root@localhost jcartwright]# fdisk /dev/sdf Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.37.4). Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. Be careful before using the write command.
Then press F and hit ENTER.
Command (m for help): F
Unpartitioned space /dev/sdf: 292.45 GiB, 314017800192 bytes, 613316016 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Start End Sectors Size
2048 613312511 613310464 292.4G
703277056 703282607 5552 2.7M
Command (m for help):
This shows that we have 292 GiB of free space to create a disk partition.
Then, press n and hit ENTER to create a new partition.
Command (m for help): n
Partition type
p primary (1 primary, 0 extended, 3 free)
e extended (container for logical partitions)
Select (default p): p
Partition number (2-4, default 2): 2
First sector (2048-703282607, default 2048): 2048
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-613312511, default 613312511): +285G
This sets the partition type as primary, it is a partition starting at the sector 2048 and is 285 Gigabytes in size.
Now, press p and hit ENTER, this will list all the partitions in the partition table.
Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sdf: 335.35 GiB, 360080695296 bytes, 703282608 sectors Disk model: 0AS Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0xea334b06 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sdf1 * 613312512 703277055 89964544 42.9G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sdf2 2048 597690367 597688320 285G 83 Linux Partition table entries are not in disk order.
Press w and hit ENTER to save and exit.
Command (m for help): w The partition table has been altered. Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table. Syncing disks. [root@localhost jcartwright]#
To format the new partition, use mkfs to create a filesystem.
[root@localhost jcartwright]# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdf2 mke2fs 1.46.5 (30-Dec-2021) /dev/sdf2 contains a LVM2_member file system Proceed anyway? (y,N) y Creating filesystem with 74711040 4k blocks and 18677760 inodes Filesystem UUID: 165368c4-1ad7-43a4-b70c-80fabe5e8838 Superblock backups stored on blocks: 32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208, 4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616 Allocating group tables: done Writing inode tables: done Creating journal (262144 blocks): done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
After this, the filesystem will be mountable in the file manager. This is very easy to do, this makes it simple to create a new partition on a HDD.