How do I view my partitions if they are primary or secondary in Linux CentOS? I tried df -T
but it does not show if partitions are primary or secondary.
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Why are you still using msdos labels?– starkJun 16, 2018 at 21:10
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no such thing as secondary, you mean primary or logical within an extended.– barlopAug 23, 2019 at 13:35
6 Answers
Use the cfdisk
command.
cfdisk /dev/sda
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6
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1
Use this command: sudo parted /dev/sda
followed by print
. It outputs:
GNU Parted 3.2
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print
Model: ATA WDC WD10JPVX-60J (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 525MB 524MB primary ntfs
2 525MB 132GB 131GB primary ntfs boot
3 132GB 461GB 329GB primary ntfs
4 461GB 966GB 505GB extended lba
6 461GB 566GB 105GB logical ext4
5 566GB 896GB 330GB logical ntfs
7 896GB 966GB 70.0GB logical ext4
You can check if the partition is primary or extended from this. Hope this helps!
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1To me it doesn't show the column "Type". Maybe it's because I'm using a SSD?– RodrigoJul 29, 2020 at 4:41
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1@Rodrigo To me it doesn't show the column "Type". Even though I'm using a HDD! Feb 1, 2021 at 8:49
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Try fdisk -l
and df -T
and align the devices fdisk reports to the devices df reports. A standard MBR disk can contain only 4 primary partitions or 3 primary and 1 extended. If you have partitions numbered >= 5 they are logical partitions (with the extended partition hosting them being always number 4 i.e. /dev/sda4).
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Your information is wrong, the extended partition is always numbered less than 5, but it doesn't have to be 4. You can also have primary partitions after extended partition.– JimmyMar 2, 2014 at 15:31
Use "fdisk -l
", but look at the "Start"/"End" sectors instead of sdan numbers. If there is any overlap between Devices, there are extended/logical partitions.
Here is an abstraction for MBR scheme. Be aware the sda2 starts from 1001470 and ends at 1000214527, covering the following 4 partitions range. It's identified as Extended partition and sda5 ~ sda8 are logical partitions.
$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 477 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x000e5c64
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 2048 999423 997376 487M 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 1001470 1000214527 999213058 476.5G 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 1001472 40060927 39059456 18.6G 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 40062976 79122431 39059456 18.6G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 79124480 977559551 898435072 428.4G 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 977561600 1000214527 22652928 10.8G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
...
Here is an example of GPT partition scheme. There are all Primary partitions. No Extended partition.
$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 477 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 079BF6C7-D69B-4188-B3AD-8BFE39D0F289
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 616447 614400 300M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda2 616448 1638399 1021952 499M EFI System
/dev/sda3 1638400 1900543 262144 128M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda4 1900544 206700543 204800000 97.7G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda5 206700544 956700671 750000128 357.6G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda6 956700672 957700095 999424 488M Linux filesystem
/dev/sda7 957700096 1000214527 42514432 20.3G Linux swap
...
These are from Ubuntu machines.
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You are right, but if the extended partition does not include other partitions, you won't see the difference in its span compared to a primary partition. Oct 22, 2017 at 15:21
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Right, that's a valid case. In the fdisk -l output Id/Type fields also give good hints. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_type– ywuNov 9, 2018 at 16:00
What are the names of the partitions? primary partitions are numbered 1 to 4, for example: sda1, hdb2, etc...
Whereas logical partitions are numbered 5 and above.
The primary extended partition is always numbered 4.
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Your information is wrong, the extended partition is always numbered less than 5, but it doesn't have to be 4. You can also have primary partitions after extended partition.– JimmyMar 2, 2014 at 15:31
cat /proc/partitions
You'll get something like this:
major minor #blocks name
8 0 488386584 sda
8 1 52436128 sda1
8 2 1 sda2
8 5 2104483 sda5
8 6 20972826 sda6
8 7 52436128 sda7
8 8 360434308 sda8
179 0 3979776 mmcblk0
179 1 3975680 mmcblk0p1
- If the partition number (
minor
) is between 1 and 4, it is either primary or extended. The extended one will have1
in the#blocks
column (above, it'ssda2
). - If the partition number is 5 or higher, it is logical.