On 2008-01-23, Joshua Baker-LePain <jlb17@begone.spam.duke.edu> wrote:
> On 2008-01-23, Ignoramus11153 <ignoramus11153@NOSPAM.11153.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> Linux sees that array as /dev/sdb. The capacity is 5 TB (as I said).
>> fdisk sees it as follows:
>>
>> ### Disk /dev/sdb: 5249.9 GB, 5249921187840 bytes
>> ### 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 638266 cylinders
>> ### Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>> ### Disk identifier: 0xcf00cb1c
>> ###
>> ### Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
>> ### /dev/sdb1 1 267349 2147480811 5 Extended
>> ### /dev/sdb5 1 267349 2147480779+ 83 Linux
>>
>> Which is the way I want. I formatted this disk with fdisk a while
>> ago. There is one giant extended partition, and a almost the same size
>> logical partition inside, holding Linux data.
>
> fdisk does not support a device that big. You must use parted. I also
> rather hope that you're using a GPT disklabel, as standard (msdos) ones also
> don't work on a device that large.

OK.

>> The device /dev/sdb5 is mounted on /data. However, df -k /data says:
>>
>> Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
>> /dev/sdb5 2113784952 239323764 1767087152 12% /data
>>
>> The above is wrong (or at least is not the way I expect), as I expect
>> 1K-blocks count to say 5 million instead of 2 million.
>
> Yep, it's wrong. The safest thing to do is backup the data somwhere else,
> recreate the partition (with parted), reformat, and *verify* before putting
> data on the system that everything is working correctly.

Yes. I scheduled data backup for 1am tonight, I will double verify it
in the morning and will redo partitioning.


> As an aside, there's really no need to use an extended partition on a device
> you'll only have one partition on anyway. Just create one primary partition
> and format that.
>

Fair enough. So, the plan is:

1) Backup the data at 1am tonight
2) In the morning, verify backup
3) umount /data
4) use gparted to repartition. Create one primary partition only, and
label it as linux
5) mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdb1
6) remount
7) restore the backup.

i