FDISK man page on Archlinux

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FDISK(8)		     System Administration		      FDISK(8)

NAME
       fdisk - manipulate disk partition table

SYNOPSIS
       fdisk [options] device

       fdisk -l [device...]

DESCRIPTION
       fdisk  is a dialog-driven program for creation and manipulation of par‐
       tition tables.  It understands GPT, MBR, Sun,  SGI  and	BSD  partition
       tables.

       Block devices can be divided into one or more logical disks called par‐
       titions.	 This division is recorded in  the  partition  table,  usually
       found in sector 0 of the disk.  (In the BSD world one talks about `disk
       slices' and a `disklabel'.)

       All partitioning is driven by  device  I/O  limits  (the	 topology)  by
       default.	  fdisk	 is  able  to optimize the disk layout for a 4K-sector
       size and use an alignment offset on modern devices for MBR and GPT.  It
       is  always a good idea to follow fdisk's defaults as the default values
       (e.g. first and last partition sectors) and partition  sizes  specified
       by  the	+<size>{M,G,...}  notation are always aligned according to the
       device properties.

       Note that partx(8) provides a rich interface for scripts to print  disk
       layouts,	 fdisk	is mostly designed for humans.	Backward compatibility
       in the output of fdisk is not guaranteed.   The	input  (the  commands)
       should always be backward compatible.

OPTIONS
       -b sectorsize
	      Specify  the  sector  size  of  the disk.	 Valid values are 512,
	      1024, 2048, and 4096.  (Recent kernels  know  the	 sector	 size.
	      Use  this option only on old kernels or to override the kernel's
	      ideas.)  Since  util-linux-2.17,	fdisk  differentiates  between
	      logical and physical sector size.	 This option changes both sec‐
	      tor sizes to sectorsize.

       -c[=mode]
	      Specify the compatibility mode, 'dos' or 'nondos'.  The  default
	      is  non-DOS mode.	 For backward compatibility, it is possible to
	      use the option without the mode argument -- then the default  is
	      used.   Note that the optional mode argument cannot be separated
	      from the -c option by a space, the correct form is  for  example
	      '-c=dos'.	 This option is DEPRECATED.

       -C cylinders
	      Specify the number of cylinders of the disk.  I have no idea why
	      anybody would want to do so.  This option is DEPRECATED.

       -H heads
	      Specify the number of heads of the disk.	(Not the physical num‐
	      ber, of course, but the number used for partition tables.)  Rea‐
	      sonable values are 255 and 16.  This option is DEPRECATED.

       -S sectors
	      Specify the number of sectors per track of the disk.   (Not  the
	      physical	number,	 of  course, but the number used for partition
	      tables.)	A reasonable value is 63.  This option is DEPRECATED.

       -h     Display a help text and exit.

       -L[=when]
	      Colorize the output in interactive mode.	The optional  argument
	      when can be auto, never or always.  The default is auto.

       -l     List  the	 partition  tables  for the specified devices and then
	      exit.  If no devices are given, those mentioned in  /proc/parti‐
	      tions (if that file exists) are used.

       -s partition...
	      Print the size (in blocks) of each given partition.  This option
	      is DEPRECATED in favour of blockdev(1).

       -t type
	      Enable support only for disklabels of the	 specified  type,  and
	      disable  support	for  all  other	 types.	 This is necessary for
	      example to access a protective or hybrid	MBR  on	 devices  with
	      GPT.

       -u[=unit]
	      When  listing  partition	tables,	 show sizes in 'sectors' or in
	      'cylinders'.  The default is to  show  sizes  in	sectors.   For
	      backward compatibility, it is possible to use the option without
	      the unit argument -- then the default is used.   Note  that  the
	      optional unit argument cannot be separated from the -u option by
	      a space, the correct form is for example '-u=cylinders'.

       -v     Display version information and exit.

DEVICES
       The device is usually /dev/sda, /dev/sdb or so.	A device  name	refers
       to  the entire disk.  Old systems without libata (a library used inside
       the Linux kernel to support ATA host controllers and  devices)  make  a
       difference  between  IDE and SCSI disks.	 In such cases the device name
       will be /dev/hd* (IDE) or /dev/sd* (SCSI).

       The partition is a device name followed by  a  partition	 number.   For
       example, /dev/sda1 is the first partition on the first hard disk in the
       system.	 See  also  Linux   kernel   documentation   (the   Documenta‐
       tion/devices.txt file).

DISK LABELS
       GPT (GUID Partition Table)
	      GPT  is  modern  standard for the layout of the partition table.
	      GPT uses 64-bit logical block addresses,	checksums,  UUIDs  and
	      names  for  partitions  and  an  unlimited  number of partitions
	      (although the number of partitions is usually restricted to  128
	      in many partitioning tools).

	      Note  that  the  first sector is still reserved for a protective
	      MBR in the GPT specification.  It prevents MBR-only partitioning
	      tools from mis-recognizing and overwriting GPT disks.

	      GPT  is  always  a  better choice than MBR, especially on modern
	      hardware with a UEFI boot loader.

       DOS-type (MBR)
	      A DOS-type partition table can describe an unlimited  number  of
	      partitions.   In sector 0 there is room for the description of 4
	      partitions (called `primary').  One of these may be an  extended
	      partition;  this	is  a  box  holding  logical  partitions, with
	      descriptors found in a linked list of  sectors,  each  preceding
	      the  corresponding  logical partitions.  The four primary parti‐
	      tions, present or not, get numbers 1-4.  Logical partitions  are
	      numbered starting from 5.

	      In  a  DOS-type partition table the starting offset and the size
	      of each partition is stored in two ways: as an  absolute	number
	      of  sectors (given in 32 bits), and as a Cylinders/Heads/Sectors
	      triple (given in	10+8+6	bits).	 The  former  is  OK  --  with
	      512-byte	sectors this will work up to 2 TB.  The latter has two
	      problems.	 First, these C/H/S fields can be filled only when the
	      number  of  heads and the number of sectors per track are known.
	      And second, even if we know what these numbers should be, the 24
	      bits  that  are  available do not suffice.  DOS uses C/H/S only,
	      Windows uses both, Linux never uses C/H/S.  The C/H/S addressing
	      is  deprecated  and  may be unsupported in some later fdisk ver‐
	      sion.

	      Please, read the DOS-mode section	 if  you  want	DOS-compatible
	      partitions.   fdisk  does	 not care about cylinder boundaries by
	      default.

       BSD/Sun-type
	      A BSD/Sun disklabel can describe	8  partitions,	the  third  of
	      which should be a `whole disk' partition.	 Do not start a parti‐
	      tion that actually uses its first sector (like a swap partition)
	      at cylinder 0, since that will destroy the disklabel.  Note that
	      a BSD label is usually nested within a DOS partition.

       IRIX/SGI-type
	      An IRIX/SGI disklabel can describe 16 partitions,	 the  eleventh
	      of which should be an entire `volume' partition, while the ninth
	      should be labeled `volume header'.  The volume header will  also
	      cover  the  partition  table,  i.e., it starts at block zero and
	      extends by default over five cylinders.  The remaining space  in
	      the  volume  header may be used by header directory entries.  No
	      partitions may overlap with the  volume  header.	 Also  do  not
	      change  its  type	 or make some filesystem on it, since you will
	      lose the partition table.	 Use this  type	 of  label  only  when
	      working  with Linux on IRIX/SGI machines or IRIX/SGI disks under
	      Linux.

       A sync() and an ioctl(BLKRRPART) (rereading the	partition  table  from
       disk)  are  performed  before exiting when the partition table has been
       updated.

DOS mode and DOS 6.x WARNING
       Note that all this is deprecated. You don't have to care	 about	things
       like  geometry and cylinders on modern operating systems. If you really
       want DOS-compatible partitioning then you have to enable DOS  mode  and
       cylinder	 units	by  using the '-c=dos -u=cylinders' fdisk command-line
       options.

       The DOS 6.x FORMAT command looks for some information in the first sec‐
       tor  of	the data area of the partition, and treats this information as
       more reliable than the information in the partition table.  DOS	FORMAT
       expects	DOS  FDISK  to clear the first 512 bytes of the data area of a
       partition whenever a size change occurs.	 DOS FORMAT will look at  this
       extra  information  even	 if the /U flag is given -- we consider this a
       bug in DOS FORMAT and DOS FDISK.

       The bottom line is that if you use fdisk or cfdisk to change  the  size
       of  a  DOS  partition table entry, then you must also use dd(1) to zero
       the first 512 bytes of that partition before using DOS FORMAT to format
       the partition.  For example, if you were using fdisk to make a DOS par‐
       tition table entry for /dev/sda1, then (after exiting fdisk and reboot‐
       ing  Linux  so that the partition table information is valid) you would
       use the command "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 bs=512 count=1"  to  zero
       the first 512 bytes of the partition.

       fdisk  usually  obtains	the  disk geometry automatically.  This is not
       necessarily the physical disk geometry (indeed,	modern	disks  do  not
       really  have anything like a physical geometry, certainly not something
       that can be described in the simplistic Cylinders/Heads/Sectors	form),
       but it is the disk geometry that MS-DOS uses for the partition table.

       Usually all goes well by default, and there are no problems if Linux is
       the only system on the disk.  However, if the disk  has	to  be	shared
       with  other  operating systems, it is often a good idea to let an fdisk
       from another operating system make at least one partition.  When	 Linux
       boots  it looks at the partition table, and tries to deduce what (fake)
       geometry is required for good cooperation with other systems.

       Whenever a partition table is printed out in DOS	 mode,	a  consistency
       check is performed on the partition table entries.  This check verifies
       that the physical and logical start and end points are  identical,  and
       that  each partition starts and ends on a cylinder boundary (except for
       the first partition).

       Some versions of MS-DOS create a first partition which does  not	 begin
       on  a cylinder boundary, but on sector 2 of the first cylinder.	Parti‐
       tions beginning in cylinder 1 cannot begin on a cylinder boundary,  but
       this  is	 unlikely  to  cause  difficulty  unless you have OS/2 on your
       machine.

       For best results, you should always use an OS-specific partition	 table
       program.	  For  example,	 you  should  make DOS partitions with the DOS
       FDISK program and Linux partitions with the Linux fdisk or Linux cfdisk
       programs.

AUTHORS
       Karel Zak ⟨kzak@redhat.com⟩
       Davidlohr Bueso ⟨dave@gnu.org⟩

       The  original version was written by Andries E. Brouwer, A. V. Le Blanc
       and others.

ENVIRONMENT
       Setting LIBFDISK_DEBUG=0xffff enables debug output.

SEE ALSO
       cfdisk(8), sfdisk(8), mkfs(8), partx(8)

AVAILABILITY
       The fdisk command is part of the util-linux package  and	 is  available
       from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

util-linux			September 2013			      FDISK(8)
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