fdisk tells the disk is still NTFS, installation for RHEL7 tells its ext4?

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Hello!

Strugling to install RHEL7 on my server and all is fine until I need to add more disks to it.
Have done ALL right when using fdisk and saves it with W, also the mkfs -t ext4 /dev/DISK.
Rebooting the server, run a check and the fdisk tells the disk is still HPFS/NTFS/exFAT, do a new install of RHEL7 and marks the large disk and reclaiming the space and this ones tells me the disk is ext4.

What is wrong? And what have I missed? Are doing a new install and will post the output later. :)

Cheers
Pontus

Po
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Responses

james.radtke@siriusxm.com's picture Guru 6863 points
6 October 2014 8:11 PM

Hi Pontus - I am guessing at this point, but it sounds like you did not "toggle" the partition type using Fdisk

# fdisk /dev/sdb
t 
1
83
w

Also - I would recommend LVM (or XFS - RHEL 7 default). If you go the LVM route, use 8e rather than 83.
You may also like using parted.

parted -s /dev/sdb mklabel gpt mkpart primary ext3 0 100% set 1 lvm on

(I need to get more familiar with RHEL 7 I think ;-)

EDIT: I forgot the ext3 in my parted command (above)

Po Community Member 50 points
7 October 2014 3:59 PM

Here´s the output of the new fdisk:

[root@GEM ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb1
Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.23.2).

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
Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x32260e3a.

Command (m for help): t
No partition is defined yet!

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb1: 2000.4 GB, 2000396289024 bytes, 3907024002 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 label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x32260e3a

 Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

Command (m for help): n
Partition type:
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
First sector (2048-3907024001, default 2048):
Using default value 2048
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (2048-3907024001, default 3907024001):
Using default value 3907024001
Partition 1 of type Linux and of size 1.8 TiB is set

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb1: 2000.4 GB, 2000396289024 bytes, 3907024002 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 label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x32260e3a

 Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

/dev/sdb1p1 2048 3907024001 1953510977 83 Linux

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list all codes): 83
Changed type of partition 'Linux' to 'Linux'

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 22: Invalid argument.
The kernel still uses the old table. The new table will be used at
the next reboot or after you run partprobe(8) or kpartx(8)
Syncing disks.
[root@GEM ~]# mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sdb1
mke2fs 1.42.9 (28-Dec-2013)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
122101760 inodes, 488378000 blocks
24418900 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=2636120064
14905 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000, 214990848

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

[root@GEM ~]#

And after a reboot:

[root@GEM ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 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 label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0001ba75

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 1026047 512000 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 1026048 976773119 487873536 8e Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 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 label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x45c05c06

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 63 3907024064 1953512001 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

What is wrong with it? :/

james.radtke@siriusxm.com's picture Guru 6863 points
7 October 2014 4:15 PM

Technically I believe your disk is under the size limitation for msdos disk labels. However, I would really consider using GPT labels.

This person has a very nice write-up
http://administratosphere.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/dos-partitions-fdisk-and-the-2tb-limit/
which refers to:
http://workingdirectory.net/posts/2010/two-tb-disks/

Based on those 2 pages, I would change my parted command a bit (change starting block and FS-type)

parted -s /dev/sdb mklabel gpt mkpart primary xfs 4096 100% set 1 lvm on

TIP: you can enclose your responses in 3 x tilde's "~~~" to keep the formatting from command output.

Po Community Member 50 points
7 October 2014 4:26 PM

All points to parted, and found a new guide around this: http://duntuk.com/how-install-new-drive-linux-larger-2tb-proper-alignment

We can then close this topic and marked it as solved! :)

james.radtke@siriusxm.com's picture Guru 6863 points
7 October 2014 5:19 PM

Great to hear it. One last "tip" - I will sometimes use gparted to manage my disks as you can see the commands it runs in the background.

David Powles's picture Red Hat 25369 points
8 October 2014 12:44 PM

Great to hear, Pontus, and thanks for the link. Hope the rest of install goes well. Please let us know if there's anything else you need help with.

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