Ubuntu Manpages

GNU Parted

a partition manipulation program

parted [options] [device [command [options...]...]]

parted is a disk partitioning and partition resizing program. It allows you to create, destroy, resize, move and copy ext2, linux-swap, FAT, FAT32, and reiserfs partitions. It can create, resize, and move Macintosh HFS partitions, as well as detect jfs, ntfs, ufs, and xfs partitions. It is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganising disk usage, and copying data to new hard disks.

This manual page documents parted briefly. Complete documentation is distributed with the package in GNU Info format; see near the bottom.

displays a help message
lists partition layout on all block devices
displays machine parseable output
never prompts for user intervention
displays the version
Set alignment for newly created partitions, valid alignment types are:
Use the minimum alignment allowed by the disk type.
Align partitions to cylinders.
Use minimum alignment as given by the disk topology information. This and the opt value will use layout information provided by the disk to align the logical partition table addresses to actual physical blocks on the disks. The min value is the minimum aligment needed to align the partition properly to physical blocks, which avoids performance degradation.
Use optimum alignment as given by the disk topology information. This aligns to a multiple of the physical block size in a way that guarantees optimal performance.

[device]
The block device to be used. When none is given, parted will use the first block device it finds.
[command [options]]
Specifies the command to be executed. If no command is given, parted will present a command prompt. Possible commands are:
Do a simple check on partition.
Copy the source partition's filesystem on source-device (or the current device if no other device was specified) to the dest partition on the current device.
Print general help, or help on command if specified.
Make a filesystem fs-type on partition. fs-type can be one of "fat16", "fat32", "ext2", "linux-swap", or "reiserfs".
Create a new disklabel (partition table) of label-type. label-type should be one of "bsd", "dvh", "gpt", "loop", "mac", "msdos", "pc98", or "sun".
Make a part-type partition with filesystem fs-type (if specified), beginning at start and ending at end (by default in megabytes). fs-type can be one of "fat16", "fat32", "ext2", "HFS", "linux-swap", "NTFS", "reiserfs", or "ufs". part-type should be one of "primary", "logical", or "extended".
Make a part-type partition with filesystem fs-type beginning at start and ending at end (by default in megabytes). Using this command is discouraged. Instead use mkpart to create an empty partition, and then use external tools like mke2fs(8) to create the filesystem.
Move partition so that it begins at start and ends at end. Note: move never changes the minor number.
Set the name of partition to name. This option works only on Mac, PC98, and GPT disklabels. The name can be placed in quotes, if necessary.
Display the partition table.
Exit from parted.
Rescue a lost partition that was located somewhere between start and end. If a partition is found, parted will ask if you want to create an entry for it in the partition table.
Resize the filesystem on partition so that it begins at start and ends at end (by default in megabytes).
Delete partition.
Choose device as the current device to edit. device should usually be a Linux hard disk device, but it can be a partition, software raid device, or an LVM logical volume if necessary.
Change the state of the flag on partition to state. Supported flags are: "boot", "root", "swap", "hidden", "raid", "lvm", "lba", "legacy_boot" and "palo". state should be either "on" or "off".
Set unit as the unit to use when displaying locations and sizes, and for interpreting those given by the user when not suffixed with an explicit unit. unit can be one of "s" (sectors), "B" (bytes), "kB", "MB", "GB", "TB", "%" (percentage of device size), "cyl" (cylinders), "chs" (cylinders, heads, sectors), or "compact" (megabytes for input, and a human-friendly form for output).
Display version information and a copyright message.

ext3 filesystem functionality does not currently work. To manage ext3 type filesystems use tools like resize2fs(8) or mke2fs(8). Note that the currently supported ext2 filesystem will be deprecated once ext3 support is finalized. Further note that ext3 support will have limited functionality that is yet to be defined. Use tools like resize2fs(8) and mke2fs(8) to manage these types of filesystems.

To manually resize an ext3 filesystem and/or a partition use resize2fs(8), fdisk(8) or similar tools. For LVM situations, you will need to use the LVM commands to resize the LVM elements.

Report bugs to <bug-parted@gnu.org>

fdisk(8), mkfs(8), The parted program is fully documented in the info(1) format GNU partitioning software manual which is distributed with the parted-doc Debian package.

This manual page was written by Timshel Knoll <timshel@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).