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Disks

Format a disk

  • gpt partitions:

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    sudo parted /dev/sda mklabel gpt
sudo parted -a opt /dev/sda mkpart primary 0% 100%
sudo mkfs.ext4 -L TempStorage /dev/sda1

  • mbr/dos

    sudo parted /dev/sdb mklabel msdos
parted -a opt /dev/sdb mkpart primary 0% 100%
sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1

    You might need to change partition type to HPFS//NFFS/exFAT (you can check it in the output of sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb):

    set dev /dev/sdb
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=$dev bs=4M status=progress
sudo sync
sudo parted --script $dev mklabel msdos
sudo parted --script -a opt $dev mkpart primary 0% 100%
echo -e "t\n7\nw" | sudo fdisk $dev
sudo mkfs.exfat -L ASDF $dev"1"
sudo sync

Move image to a drive

dd if=./src-filename of=/dev/sdb status=progress conv=fsync

Get the list of physical disks

lsblk -d -o NAME,TYPE,SIZE -e 7,11
NAME    TYPE   SIZE
sda     disk 223.6G
nvme0n1 disk   3.6T
sudo lshw -class disk
  *-namespace:2
       description: NVMe disk
       physical id: 1
       bus info: nvme@0:1
       logical name: /dev/nvme0n1
       size: 3726GiB (4TB)
  *-disk
       description: ATA Disk
       product: INTEL SSDSC2
       physical id: 0.0.0
       bus info: scsi@1:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/sda

lsblk --fs — shows all block devices along with uuids.

Erase disk

HDD & SD cards

  • sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M status=progress
  • sudo shred -v -n 3 /dev/sdX (might need to install coreutils)

NVME

  • sudo nvme format /dev/nvme0n1 --ses=1 # or --ses=2 (might need to install nvme-cli)

Resize a GPT with a ext4

  1. Run parted: parted /dev/sdX
  2. Change display unit to sectors: unit s.
  3. Print current partition table and note the start sector for your partition: p
  4. Delete your partition (won’t delete the data or filesystem): rm <number>
  5. Recreate the partition with the starting sector from above: mkpart primary <start> <end>
  6. Exit parted: quit
  7. Check the filesystem: sudo e2fsck -f /dev/sdXX
  8. Resize filesystem: sudo resize2fs /dev/sdXX

Add encrypted disk

sudo cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/nvme0n1
sudo cryptsetup open /dev/nvme0n1 nvme0_crypt
sudo mkfs.ext4 -L VortexHome /dev/mapper/nvme0_crypt

then add it in /etc/crypttab:

sudo nano /etc/crypttab
nvme0_crypt UUID=dd3a78d4-1085-422f-abd4-e42a1bf50073 none luks,discard

# Or
# nvme0_crypt UUID=c652c9c4-54a0-440f-824a-ec1d8e0d2d50 none luks,keyscript=/usr/share/yubikey-luks/ykluks-keyscript,discard

Update initramfs: sudo update-initramfs -u

and finally in fstab:

sudo nano /etc/fstab
/dev/mapper/nvme0_crypt    /home2          ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1

Disk health checks

Non-destructive disk health check (with smartctl)

  • Start test: sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sdf # or sudo smartctl -t short /dev/sdf
  • Check results: sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/sdf or sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdf

Note. If smartctl test says that disk is healthy, it does not necessarily mean so. See the section below.

Destructive disk health check (with badblocks)

Docs: Source1, Source2

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sudo badblocks -c 32768 -p 3 -b 4096 -wvs /dev/sdX # (1)!
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0x55: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0xff: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0x00: done
Reading and comparing: 1506379640ne, 51:25:53 elapsed. (0/0/0 errors)
1506379641ne, 51:25:56 elapsed. (1/0/0 errors)
1506379642ne, 51:25:59 elapsed. (2/0/0 errors)
1506379643ne, 51:26:02 elapsed. (3/0/0 errors)

    • -b – block size.

    • -w — use write-mode test.

    • -c — is the number of blocks which are tested at a time.

    • -v —verbose mode.

    • -s — show the progress.

    • -p — number of passes.

Later, you can verify unreadability of particular sector with hdparm command:

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sudo hdparm --read-sector 3012759284 /dev/sdf # (1)!
/dev/sdf:
reading sector 3012759284: FAILED: Input/output error

  1. Note that if do not set -b option properly badblocks, you have to adjust sector here.

    The default block size in badblocks is 1024 bytes (from badblocks man: -b block-size Specify the size of blocks in bytes. The default is 1024.), whereas Logical block size is 512 bytes (sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdf: Logical Sector size: 512 bytes), hence 3012759284 (= 1506379642 * 2).

mdadm & RAID

Replacing a faulty/failing HDD in an mdadm RAID

Docs: Source1, Source2.

Determine removed by mdadm disk: