[clue] Whack-a-disk

[David L. Willson]

How can I quickly and simply wipe and re-partition a disk from a script? 

Here's a proposal, using sdc as the example. 

# Quickly wipe the head of the disk.
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc bs=16MB count=1 

# Create a new, basic partition table. Good for up to 2TB. 
sudo parted /dev/sdc mklabel msdos

# If you have a disk larger than 2TB, use this instead.
# sudo parted /dev/sdc mklabel gpt

# Create a new, cylinder-aligned, primary partition, the full size of the disk 
sudo parted --align cylinder /dev/sdc mkpart primary 0% 100% 

The most interesting part might be that last line. I found many posts by people looking for a way to create a partition using parted non-interactively that is the full size of the disk and "properly aligned for best performance", but I didn't find anyone giving the answer. So... So that.

--
David L. Willson
Teacher, Engineer, Evangelist
RHCE+Satellite CCAH Network+ A+ Linux+ LPIC-1 UbuntuCP NovellCLA
Mobile 720-333-LANS(5267)
http://sofree.us

This is a good time for a r3VOLution.