Re: New external harddrive and 106Mb unallocated - why
On 12/30/2013 06:46 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
On Dec 30, 2013, at 4:22 PM, Robert Moskowitz
<rgm(a)htt-consult.com> wrote:
> I just got a Toshiba Canvio Desk 2TB external HD that my plans are to delete the NTFS
partition and put on an EXT4 one.
>
> Thing is the first 106MB are unallocated. Why?
Can you post the results from 'parted -l /dev/sdX u s p' that might be useful.
This was new in box?
It is brand new from a sealed box. And the the command seems to have
done both drives:
# parted -l /dev/sdb u s p
Model: ATA TOSHIBA MK3261GS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 320GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 525MB 524MB primary ext4 boot
2 525MB 320GB 320GB primary lvm
Model: TOSHIBA External USB 3.0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 106MB 2000GB 2000GB primary ntfs
Model: Linux device-mapper (linear) (dm)
Disk /dev/mapper/fedora_19-home: 280GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: loop
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Flags
1 0.00B 280GB 280GB ext4
Model: Linux device-mapper (linear) (dm)
Disk /dev/mapper/fedora_19-root: 31.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: loop
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Flags
1 0.00B 31.5GB 31.5GB ext4
Model: Linux device-mapper (linear) (dm)
Disk /dev/mapper/fedora_19-swap: 8389MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: loop
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Flags
1 0.00B 8389MB 8389MB linux-swap(v1)
> why the unallocated space; is this for sector replacement?
Those are hidden on modern drives. When a physical sector is replaced, it no longer has
an LBA, it's reassigned to the replacement. It's one of the reasons zeroing drives
is an almost pointless security task because substituted sectors still contain data and
are erase only the ATA Security Erase functions.
I thought so. My revised thinking is that if I were to put this drive
on a Win system and run the install software, this unused space will be
used to create a partition for managing the backups.
> Seems to be a rather nice unit. Drive did not power up until I connected the USB;
very convient not to have to unplug it to save on power usage.
I see, it's in an enclosure, so chances are this is some weirdness on the part of the
vendor who partitioned and pre-formatted the drive, rather than something the OEM did.
Toshiba in both cases. Just probably different groups in Toshiba.
I'm a nut, so I'd pull the drive, SATA or eSATA it to a
board, and ATA Secure Erase the thing, take a baseline smartctl -x sample, put it back
into its enclosure, and then GPT partition and format it.
I might even go so far as to use gdisk to partition it twice, once outside and once
inside the enclosure, and make sure the relevant data are identical, in particular the
number of physical sectors. There are some enclosure firmware floating around that
misreport the size of the drive so you end up with a drive partitioned one way in the
enclosure and yet the backup partition is reported as missing or damaged when pulled from
the enclosure. Such enclosure deserve to be returned as defective.
You are a nut, but does not mean some squirrel is not out to get you! :)
This case is NOT made to be opened in the field. So I am just going to
use the Gnome disk gui tool, delete the partition, and go from there.
Unless the partd output I included at the beginning gives you any idea
of something else going on...