Questions[parted](ubuntu)

When I attach a drive to ubuntu 18.04 it is not listed in /dev.

ls -al /dev | grep sd

returns only sda (boot drive)

If I list disks, I can see the device (full fdisk response below - I'm no longer convinced the partition error is referring to the attached drive). But not the disk.

dmsg doesn't show any errors when i plug the device in either:

[10134.191871] usb 2-3: USB disconnect, device number 2
[11563.988155] usb 2-3: new high-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
[11564.138381] usb 2-3: New USB device found, idVendor=0bc2, idProduct=ac19
[11564.138387] usb 2-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1
[11564.138390] usb 2-3: Product: Device Name
[11564.138393] usb 2-3: Manufacturer: Seagate
[11564.138395] usb 2-3: SerialNumber: 0000000000000000

So i guess the questions are:

1. why can't i mount this device as is?
2. how do i get this device to be mountable?

ps

I now have two devices that mount happily on other machines, mac and windows, but fail to mount on this ubuntu box.

user@box:~$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x26464355

Device     Boot   Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *       2048    999423    997376   487M 83 Linux
/dev/sda2       1001470 976771071 975769602 465.3G  5 Extended
/dev/sda5       1001472 976771071 975769600 465.3G 8e Linux LVM

Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.




Disk /dev/mapper/box--vg-root: 461.4 GiB, 495418605568 bytes, 967614464 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes


Disk /dev/mapper/box--vg-swap_1: 3.9 GiB, 4173332480 bytes, 8151040 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: B09AD881-9F34-401E-9A48-74B04F72C504

Device                           Start     End Sectors  Size Type
/dev/mapper/box--vg-swap_1p1  4096 8148991 8144896  3.9G Linux filesystem

I have a Western Digital 4TB drive (WD40PURZ). It appears that the recommended procedure for partitioning the drive results with: "Optimal transfer size 33553920 bytes not a multiple of physical block size (4096 bytes)" warning from the linux kernel. Should I be concerned about that?

I have been using the following bash script on Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS to create a bootable USB disk for an embedded system, which worked fine:

# Partition disk.
/usr/bin/sudo /bin/umount /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdc2
/usr/bin/sudo /sbin/parted -s -- /dev/sdc mklabel msdos
/usr/bin/sudo /sbin/parted -s -- /dev/sdc mkpart primary 2048s 5244928s
/usr/bin/sudo /sbin/parted -s -- /dev/sdc set 1 boot on
/usr/bin/sudo /sbin/parted -s -- /dev/sdc mkpart primary 5246976s -977920s
/usr/bin/sudo /sbin/parted -s -- /dev/sdc quit
/usr/bin/sudo /sbin/partprobe /dev/sdc
/usr/bin/sudo /bin/umount /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdc2
/usr/bin/sudo /sbin/mkfs.ext4 -L rootfs /dev/sdc1
/usr/bin/sudo /sbin/mkfs.ext4 -L var /dev/sdc2
/usr/bin/sudo /sbin/partprobe /dev/sdc
/bin/sync

# Copy filesystem.
/usr/bin/udisksctl mount -b /dev/sdc1
/usr/bin/sudo /bin/cp -a ${ROOTFS_DIR}/. ${ROOTFS_MOUNTPOINT}
/usr/bin/udisksctl mount -b /dev/sdc2
/usr/bin/sudo /bin/cp -a ${VAR_DIR}/. ${VAR_MOUNTPOINT}
/bin/sync

# Upload bootloader.
/usr/bin/udisksctl mount -b /dev/sdc1
/usr/bin/sudo /usr/sbin/grub-install --no-floppy --directory=${ROOTFS_MOUNTPOINT}/usr/lib/grub/i386-pc --locale-directory=${ROOTFS_MOUNTPOINT}/usr/share/locale --boot-directory=${ROOTFS_MOUNTPOINT}/boot /dev/sdc
/bin/sync
/usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/eject /dev/sdc

The output of fdisk for the generated USB disk is:

Disk /dev/sdc: 14.9 GiB, 16022241280 bytes, 31293440 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
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x22953b4d

Device     Boot   Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *       2048  5244928  5242881  2.5G 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2       5246976 30315520 25068545   12G 83 Linux

Recently, I switched to Ubuntu 18.04, but now, grub loads the linux kernel and initramfs, though afterwards booting fails with the following output, and it drops to emergency shell:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error

In the emergency shell, blkid command shows the partitions as expected, which matches the UUIDs in /boot/grub/grub.cfg and /etc/fstab:

/dev/sdb1: LABEL="rootfs" UUID="5556accb-3244-47d0-8042-aaad74dd3950" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="22953b4d-01"
/dev/sdb2: LABEL="var" UUID="6ee3b764-77dB-481d-9564-fbfabb590933" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="22953b4d-02"

Since I have already experienced some other problems in Ubuntu 18.04, such as different behavior from losetup, different output format for fdisk, etc. should I provide further command options for mkfs.ext4 or grub-install commands in the script? grub-install command is from Ubuntu with version 2.02-2ubuntu8.13, but its options use directories from the embedded filesystem which has grub 2.02.beta2-4, so, can there be some inconsistencies due to this?

I am following the instructions here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallingANewHardDrive

It says:

4) Create one partition occupying all the space on the drive:

(parted) mkpart primary 0 0

5) Check that the results are correct:

(parted) print

However when I do this I get:

$sudo parted /dev/sda
GNU Parted 3.2
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) mklabel gpt
(parted) unit GB
(parted) mkpart primary 0 0
(parted) print
Model: ATA Some SSD (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 240GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name     Flags
 1      0.00GB  0.00GB  0.00GB               primary

The Start and End of 0GB and Size of 0GB is making me think this isn't correct. I would have thought the size should have been 240GB (or close to it). Are these instructions correct? If not, what is the correct way to make a single partition that covers the entire disk?

I'm trying to create software to restore backups that I already create with scripts. I haven't needed to restore any, fortunately, but now I want to move the contents of one of my backups to a SSD drive, and it turns out it's harder than I expected.

Right now I'm trying to recreate the partition table. I'd like to use parted because it seems the easiest of the available tools to use in a script. I see two things that are puzzling me.

First, a command like

parted /dev/sdh mklabel gpt mkpart primary fat32 2048 4096 print

makes a gpt partition table and a partition, but it shows a name "primary" and that is what blkid calls a "PARTLABEL". Reading the info and man pages seems to indicate it should be the filesystem type, not name. On experimentation, it appears no fs type is accepted any more, and that is the name instead.

The second problem is: I do not want a name on the partition at all, but I've tried "" and " " with no luck.

So: how do I create a partition without a PARTLABEL? I can certainly do it in gparted, but I cannot script that.