GPT fdisk

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GPT fdisk—consisting of the gdisk, cgdisk, sgdisk, and fixparts programs—is a set of text-mode partitioning tools made by Rod Smith. They work on Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) Partition Table (GPT) disks, rather than on the older (and once more common) Master Boot Record (MBR) partition tables.

gdisk, cgdisk and sgdisk all have the same functionality but provide different user interfaces. gdisk is text-mode interactive, sgdisk is command-line, and cgdisk has a curses-based interface. This article covers gdisk(8) and sgdisk(8) utilities.

Tip:
  • For basic partitioning functionality with a text user interface, cgdisk(8) can be used.
  • GPT fdisk website has detailed walkthroughs for gdisk, cgdisk, sgdisk and FixParts.

Installation

Install the gptfdisk package.

List partitions

To list partition tables and partitions on a block device, you can run the following, where device is a name like /dev/sda, /dev/nvme0n1, /dev/mmcblk0, etc.: 

# gdisk -l /dev/sda

or alternatively the same action using sgdisk: 

# sgdisk -p /dev/sda

Backup and restore partition table

Before making changes to a disk, you may want to backup the partition table and partition scheme of the drive. You can also use a backup to copy the same partition layout to numerous drives.

Using sgdisk you can create a binary backup consisting of the protective MBR, the main GPT header, the backup GPT header, and one copy of the partition table. The example below will save the partition table of /dev/sda to a file sgdisk-sda.bin: 

# sgdisk -b=sgdisk-sda.bin /dev/sda

You can later restore the backup by running: 

# sgdisk -l=sgdisk-sda.bin /dev/sda

If you want to clone your current device's partition layout (/dev/sda in this case) to another drive (/dev/sdc) run: 

# sgdisk -R=/dev/sdc /dev/sda

If both drives will be in the same computer, you need to randomize the disk and partition GUIDs: 

# sgdisk -G /dev/sdc

Create a partition table and partitions

The first step to partitioning a disk is making a partition table. After that, the actual partitions are created according to the desired partition scheme.

Before beginning, you may wish to backup your current partition table and scheme.

The following shows how to use gdisk to perform both the creation of a partition table and the creation of the actual partitions. Alternatively, you may use the curses-based version called cgdisk; however, the following instructions do not apply to it. See cgdisk(8) for its usage.

gdisk performs partition alignment automatically on a 2048 512-byte sector (1 MiB) block size base which should be compatible with all Advanced Format HDDs and the vast majority of SSDs if not all.

To use gdisk, run the program with the name of the block device you want to change/edit. This example uses /dev/sda: 

# gdisk /dev/sda

Create new table

Warning: If you create a new partition table on a disk with data on it, it will erase all the data on the disk. Make sure this is what you want to do.

To create a new GUID Partition Table and clear all current partition data, type o at the prompt. Skip this step if the table you require has already been created.

Create partitions

Create a new partition with the n command. You must enter the partition number, first sector, last sector and the partition type.

Note: See Partitioning#Partition scheme for considerations concerning the size and location of partitions.

Partition number

A partition number is the number assigned to a partition, e.g. a partition with number 1 on a disk /dev/sda would be /dev/sda1. Partition numbers may not always match the order of partitions on disk, in which case they can be sorted.

It is advised to choose the default number suggested by gdisk.

First and last sector

The first and last sectors of the partition can be specified in sector numbers or as positions measured in kibibytes (K), mebibytes (M), gibibytes (G), tebibytes (T), or pebibytes (P);

The position can be specified in:

  • absolute terms from the start of the disk. E.g. 40M as a first sector specifies a position 40 MiB from the start of the disk.
  • relative terms by preceding the size with +size or -size. E.g. +2G to specify a point 2 GiB after the default start sector, or -200M to specify a point 200 MiB before the last available sector.

Pressing the Enter key with no input specifies the default value, which is the start of the largest available block for the first sector and the end of the same block for the last sector.

Tip:
  • When partitioning it is always a good idea to specify partition sizes using relative terms with the +size{M,G,T,P} notation and not use sizes smaller than 1 MiB. Such partitions will always be aligned according to the device properties.
  • Leave a 1 MiB free space somewhere in the first 2 TiB of the disk (e.g. by using +1M as the first sector of a partition) in case you ever need to create a BIOS boot partition.

Partition type

Select the partition's type by entering gdisk's internal type code or specifying the partition type GUID manually. The default, Linux filesystem (GUID 0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4, gdisk's internal code 8300), should be fine for most use cases.

Tip:
Common partition types
Partition type Mountpoint gdisk's
code 		Partition type GUID
Linux filesystem Any 8300 0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4
EFI system partition Any1 ef00 C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
BIOS boot partition None ef02 21686148-6449-6E6F-744E-656564454649
Linux x86-64 root (/) / 8304 4F68BCE3-E8CD-4DB1-96E7-FBCAF984B709
Linux swap [SWAP] 8200 0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F
Linux /home /home 8302 933AC7E1-2EB4-4F13-B844-0E14E2AEF915
Linux /srv /srv 8306 3B8F8425-20E0-4F3B-907F-1A25A76F98E8
Linux /var /var1 8310 4D21B016-B534-45C2-A9FB-5C16E091FD2D
Linux /var/tmp /var/tmp1 8311 7EC6F557-3BC5-4ACA-B293-16EF5DF639D1
Linux LVM Any 8e00 E6D6D379-F507-44C2-A23C-238F2A3DF928
Linux RAID Any fd00 A19D880F-05FC-4D3B-A006-743F0F84911E
Linux LUKS Any 8309 CA7D7CCB-63ED-4C53-861C-1742536059CC
Linux dm-crypt Any 8308 7FFEC5C9-2D00-49B7-8941-3EA10A5586B7
  1. systemd-gpt-auto-generator(8) will only automount the partition if specific conditions are met. See systemd#GPT partition automounting for details.

Repeat this procedure until you have the partitions you desire.

Write changes to disk

Tip: Use the command c to change a partition's name (PARTLABEL) for easy distinguishing.

Write the table to disk and exit via the w command.

Tips and tricks

Convert between MBR and GPT

Tip: Read Rod Smith's Converting to or from GPT for more detailed information and walktrough.

gdisk, sgdisk and cgdisk have the ability to convert MBR and BSD disklabels to GPT without data loss. Upon conversion, all the MBR primary partitions and the logical partitions become GPT partitions with the correct partition type GUIDs and Unique partition GUIDs created for each partition.

After conversion, the boot loader will need to be reinstalled to configure it to boot from GPT.

Warning:
  • GPT stores a secondary table at the end of disk. This data structure consumes 33 512-byte sectors (16.5 KiB) by default. MBR does not have a similar data structure at its end, which means that the last partition on an MBR disk sometimes extends to the very end of the disk and prevents complete conversion. If this happens to you, you must abandon the conversion and resize the final partition.

Tango-view-fullscreen.pngThis article or section needs expansion.Tango-view-fullscreen.png

Reason: Provide a reference to the issue. (Discuss in Talk:GPT fdisk)
  • There are known corruption issues with the backup GPT on laptops that are Intel chipset based, and run in RAID mode. The solution is to use AHCI instead of RAID, if possible.

To convert an MBR partition table to GPT using sgdisk, use the -g/--mbrtogpt option: 

# sgdisk -g /dev/sda

To convert GPT to MBR use the -m/--gpttombr option. Note that it is not possible to convert more than four partitions from GPT to MBR. 

# sgdisk -m /dev/sda

Sort partitions

This applies for when a new partition is created in the space between two partitions or a partition is deleted. /dev/sda is used in this example. 

# sgdisk -s /dev/sda

After sorting the partitions if you are not using Persistent block device naming, it might be required to adjust the /etc/fstab and/or the /etc/crypttab configuration files.

Note: The kernel must read the new partition table for the partitions (e.g. /dev/sda1) to be usable. Reboot the system or tell the kernel to reread the partition table.

Recover GPT header

In case main GPT header or backup GPT header gets damaged, you can recover one from the other with gdisk. /dev/sda is used in this example. 

# gdisk /dev/sda

choose r for recovery and transformation options (experts only). From there choose either

  • b: use backup GPT header (rebuilding main)
  • d: use main GPT header (rebuilding backup)

When done write the table to disk and exit via the w command.

Expand a GPT disk

After enlarging a disk (e.g. in hardware RAID or a virtual machine disk) the newly added free space will not be immediately usable since GPT keeps data at the end of the disk. You must relocate the backup GPT header to the new end of the disk.

Run sgdisk with the option -e/--move-second-header, e.g.: 

# sgdisk -e /dev/sda

Afterwards print the partition table; the total free space should now be increased.

Prevent GPT partition automounting

systemd-gpt-auto-generator(8) will automount partitions following the Discoverable Partitions Specification. Sometimes that may not be desirable.

The automounting can be disabled by setting the partition attribute 63 "do not automount" on the partition.

Start gdisk, e.g.: 

# gdisk /dev/sda

Press p to print the partition table and take note of the partition number(s) of the for which you want to disable automounting.

Press x extra functionality (experts only).

Press a set attributes. Input the partition number and set the attribute 63. Under Set fields are: it should now show 63 (do not automount). Press Enter to end attribute changing. Repeat this for all partitions you want to prevent from automounting.

When done write the table to disk and exit via the w command.

Alternatively using sgdisk, the attribute can be set using the -A/--attributes= option; see sgdisk(8) for usage. For example, to set partition attribute 63 "do not automount" on /dev/sda2 run: 

# sgdisk -A 2:set:63 /dev/sda

gdisk EFI application

There is no package for the EFI version of gdisk, but Rod Smith provides a prebuilt gdisk EFI binary on SourceForge. Download gdisk-efi-*.zip and extract the archive. To use it, copy gdisk_x64.efi to the EFI system partition and launch it from your boot loader or UEFI Shell.

gdisk_x64.efi allows you to edit the partition table before the operating system is even booted. It is used the same way as the gdisk binary on Linux.

Note: gdisk_x64.efi cannot access the file system, thus it cannot backup the partition table to a file or restore it from a backup file.

See README-efi.txt for more information.

See also