PARTED(8)

NAME
GNU Parted - a partition manipulation program

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

DESCRIPTION
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.

OPTIONS

-h, --help
    displays a help message

-l, --list
    lists partition layout on all block devices

-m, --machine
    displays machine parseable output

-s, --script
    never prompts for user intervention

-v, --version
    displays the version

-a alignment-type, --align alignment-type
    Set alignment for newly created partitions, valid alignment types are:

    none
        Use the minimum alignment allowed by the disk type.

    cylinder
        Align partitions to cylinders.

    minimal
        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.

    optimal
        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.

COMMANDS

[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:

    check partition
        Do a simple check on partition.

    cp [source-device] source dest
        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.

    help [command]
        Print general help, or help on command if specified.

    mkfs partition fs-type
        Make a filesystem fs-type on partition. fs-type can be one of "fat16", "fat32", "ext2", "linux-swap", or "reiserfs".

    mklabel label-type
        Create a new disklabel (partition table) of label-type. label-type should be one of "bsd", "dvh", "gpt", "loop", "mac", "msdos", "pc98", or "sun".

    mkpart part-type [fs-type] start end
        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".

    mkpartfs part-type fs-type start end
        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 start end
        Move partition so that it begins at start and ends at end. Note: move never changes the minor number.

    name partition name
        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.

    print
        Display the partition table.

    quit
        Exit from parted.

    rescue start end
        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 partition start end
        Resize the filesystem on partition so that it begins at start and ends at end (by default in megabytes).

    rm partition
        Delete partition.

    select device
        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.

    set partition flag state
        Change the state of the flag on partition to state. Supported flags are: "boot", "root", "swap", "hidden", "raid", "lvm", "lba", and "palo". state should be either "on" or "off".

    unit unit
        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).

    version
        Display version information and a copyright message.

KNOWN ISSUES
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.

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

SEE ALSO
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.

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