Bill Huhn wrote:
> Can one use xwindows to add a second hard drive? Would this include the
> formatting and partitioning? As I understand, Linux will autodetect the
> additional hard drive (after boot I suppose) and set it up for IO? All I
> need to do then is format and partition. If xwindows doesn't do it, what
> are the fdisk commands? Thanks,
>
> -Bill-
>
Well. . .
There might be an xwindows front-end for fdisk someplace, but precisely
speaking, no, xwindows won't do what you're looking for automatically.
I recommend checking out the filesystem section of the Lunux System
Administrator's Guide (available from Sunsite but mirrored at www.linux.org
and www.redhat.com, among other places). Linux won't automatically see the
disk on the boot except that it will assign it an entry under /dev, probably
/dev/hdb or /dev/hdc.
So, after you've handled the physical installation (if you're really new to
this and don't already know, TURN OFF YOUR POWER BEFORE YOU TOUCH ANYTHING
INSIDE THE COMPUTER; once you have the disk installed, you will still have to
make sure your system BIOS sees the hard drive -- usually there's a prompt on
the startup to hit f2 or some such to enter setup; follow the instructions
from there, and I've done a bunch of these so mail me offline if you have
trouble).
Log in as root. Then, type "mount" and look for the device names of the drives
already mounted. For example, part of the mount table on my machine reads as
follows:
/dev/hda2 on / type ext2 (rw)
/dev/hda3 on /home type ext2 (rw)
/dev/hdd1 on /usr type ext2 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
The part you're interested in is the /dev/hd[x] part. You'll almost
definitely see entries for hda, and if you have a cdrom then probably for hdb
as well. The first free letter (probably hdb or hdc) will be assigned to your
new hard drive. The main thing is you want to be sure that you're not running
fdisk on a drive you already use.
So assuming that your mount table doesn't contain any entries for /dev/hdc,
type:
# fdisk /dev/hdc
If there's nothing there, fdisk will burp at you and you need to guess again.
If it does find something, you'll get a prompt to type "m" for help. Do
that. You'll get a menu of the available commands.
Type p to see the current version of that disk's partition table. There may
be nothing there, or there may be one or more existing partitions. If there
are partitions there (probably just one big DOS partition if it's a new hard
drive), you probably want to delete them. Type d for delete, which will
prompt you for the partition's ID number. If there's only one partition, the
ID number will probably be 1.
Then type n to add a new partition. If you want to use the whole disk for one
partition, do that, otherwise keep typing n and adding partitions until you've
got all you want. You can backtrack using the p and d commands to get rid of
partitions if you change your mind.
When you have the partition table you want, type w to exit. If you fear that
you've made mistakes and want to start over, you can type q to leave fdisk
without saving your changes.
After you're done with fdisk, you still have to create filesystems in your new
partition(s). The mke2fs command will do that.
# mke2fs /dev/hdc1 <-- this will format the first partition on device
/dev/hdc.
Then, in order to make the filesystem usable, you mount it. There is an
Xwindows filesystem manager (in the control panel), and I think it will take
care of this for you; or you can use the command line version of mount and/or
edit your /etc/fstab (read the relevant man pages for each if you want to do
it that way).
Hope this helps. . .
m
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