Using the entire disk as a file system (Was Re: The case against LVM)

[Mikkel L. Ellertson]

Roberto Malinverni wrote:
>> -----Messaggio originale-----
>> Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 07:17:51 -0500
>> From: "Mikkel L. Ellertson" <mikkel at infinity-ltd.com>
>> Subject: Re: The case against LVM
>> To: For users of Fedora <fedora-list at redhat.com>
>> Message-ID: <46BC576F.1020000 at infinity-ltd.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>>
>> (You can create a file system on /dev/sda, but you
>> can not do that and have a partition table at the same time.) There
>> have been times in the past where I have used the entire drive
>> instead of creating a partition table. But most BIOS do not like it.
>>
>> Mikkel
> 
> Pardon my jumping in, but I'd like to understand your lines above.
> AFAIK, there's no way to create a filesystem on a drive without a partition
> table.
> A drive with only one big partition for its entire space, does have a
> partition table.
> Can you elaborate a bit more about this?
> BR,
> Roberto
> 
If you have a drive you don't mind messing up, try running something
like "mke2fs /dev/sde" changing /dev/sde to match the drive you are
using.

# mke2fs /dev/sde
mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
/dev/sde is entire device, not just one partition!
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
166144 inodes, 331785 blocks
16589 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=343932928
11 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
15104 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912

Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 28 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
# fdisk -l /dev/sde

Disk /dev/sde: 1358 MB, 1358991360 bytes
42 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1019 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2604 * 512 = 1333248 bytes

Disk /dev/sde doesn't contain a valid partition table
# mount /dev/sde /mnt/temp/
# df /mnt/temp
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sde               1306236      1968   1237912   1% /mnt/temp

As you can see, the drive does not have a valid partition table, but
it does have an ext2 file system on the entire drive. It will mount
just fine. The drive I used was an old laptop IDE hard drive on a
USB to IDE converter, but it will also work on an internal drive on
a PATA, SATA, or SCSI controller. It should work on any drive that
has a /dev device entry. What is even more interesting is that it
will also get auto-mounted on my FC6 system.

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

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