Linux Hard Disk Format Command

Q. I've installed a new 250GB SATA hard disk on our office CentOS Linux server. How do I format a hard disk under Linux operating system from a shell prompt?

A.. There are total 4 steps involved for hard disk upgrade and installation procedure:
Step #1 : Partition the new disk using fdisk command

Following command will list all detected hard disks:

# fdisk -l | grep '^Disk'

Output:
Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes Disk /dev/sdb: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes

A device name refers to the entire hard disk. For more information see
Linux partition naming convention and IDE drive mappings.

To partition the disk - /dev/sdb, enter:

# fdisk /dev/sdb

The basic fdisk commands you need are:

m - print help
p - print the partition table
n - create a new partition
d - delete a partition
q - quit without saving changes
w - write the new partition table and exit

Step#2 : Format the new disk using mkfs.ext3 command

To format Linux partitions using ext2fs on the new disk:

# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
Step#3 : Mount the new disk using mount command

First create a mount point /disk1 and use mount command to mount /dev/sdb1, enter:

# mkdir /disk1

# mount /dev/sdb1 /disk1

# df -H
Step#4 : Update /etc/fstab file

Open /etc/fstab file, enter:

# vi /etc/fstab

Append as follows:
/dev/sdb1 /disk1 ext3 defaults 1 2

Save and close the file.
Task: Label the partition

You can label the partition using e2label. For example, if you want to label the new partition /backup, enter

# e2label /dev/sdb1 /backup

You can use label name insted of partition name to mount disk using /etc/fstab:

LABEL=/backup /disk1 ext3 defaults 1 2