Getting Started Guide

20 Preparing Shared Storage

Partitioning the Shared Disk

This section describes how to use Linux’s native partition utility fdisk to

create and align a single partition on a volume/virtual disk that spans the

entire disk.

CAUTION: In a system running the Linux operating system, align the disk prior to

being written to the Volume/Virtual Disk (VD). Failure to do so will cause all data

on the disk to be destroyed.

To use the fdisk utility to create a partition and set the alignment:

At the command prompt, type one of the following:

• #> fdisk –u /dev/<block_device>

• fdisk –u /dev/mapper/<multipath_disk>

Where, <

block_device

> is the name of the block device that you are

creating and aligning a partition on.

For example, if the block device is

/dev/sdb

, type:

fdisk –u /dev/sdb

If multiple paths to a shared disk are being used and device mapper is the

multipath software.The system displays the following message:

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to

8782.

NOTE: The number of cylinder is larger than 1024, and could in certain setups

cause problems with:

• Software that runs at boot time (old versions of LILO)

• Booting the Partitioning software from other operating systems (for example,

DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

NOTE: The value of the number of cylinders in your display message may be

different depending on the size of your disk.

Command (m for help): n

# To create a new partition

b Command action extended primary partition

(1-4):P

# To create a primary partition

c Partition number (1-4): 1