Index

Table of contents

Disk Management

Device details

get device info as normal user
lsblk -o NAME,MOUNTPOINT,SIZE,MODEL
udisksctl dump
udisksctl info -b [device]
udisks --dump | less
list drives and partitions for block devices (hard disks, USB sticks)
sudo lsblk
list all partitions: UUID, Label and filesystem
sudo blkid
list drives, partition table type and partitions with filesystem plus sector size
sudo parted -l
list drives, partition table type and partitions with filesystem (plus sectors and block sizes)
sudo fdisk -l
show currently mounted drives
sudo cat /proc/mounts | sed "/^\/dev/!d;s: .*::" | sort -u
show drives mounted on startup
sudo cat /etc/fstab
show useful symbolic links to devices
sudo tree /dev/disk

Mounting / unmounting

Regular user

mounting a device as normal user (on desktop)
udisksctl mount -b [device]
udisks --mount [device]
unmounting a device as normal user (on desktop)
udisksctl unmount -b [device]
eject drive
udisksctl power-off -b [device]

Root

create mount point
sudo mkdir -p [path to mount]
mounting a device as root
sudo mount [device] [path to mount]
mounting a device as root using the UUID
sudo mount /dev/disk/by-uuid/[UUID] [path to mount]
unmount a device as root
sudo umount -v [device or mount path]
spin down drive
sudo hdparm -y [device]

Partition Labels

FAT32

change label of FAT32 drive without format
sudo dosfslabel /dev/sdc1 USB64

NTFS

fix problems with NTFS partition
sudo ntfsfix [partition]
change the label of an NTFS drive without format
sudo ntfslabel /dev/sdb1 E6000
change the label of an NTFS drive without format (force)
sudo ntfslabel -f /dev/sdb1 E6000

Disk Usage

show child directory sizes of in current directory in bytes
du
show human readable directory sizes
du -h
show size of current directory only (nesting depth=0)
du -d 0
show child directory sizes of in current directory in MB
du -BM
show child directory sizes of the specified directory in bytes
du /path/to/directory
show sizes of direct child directories only
du -d 1 .
sort directories by size
du -BM -d 1 . | sort -n
du / | sort -nr | less

Monitoring

log io at regular intervals
sar -b 1 > io.log

fixing bad blocks

fix bad blocks on ext2/ext3/ext4 partition
sudo e2fsck -cfpv /dev/[device]
fix common NTFS partition problems
ntfsfix /dev/[device]
required dependency
sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

disk rescue

cloning a partition / drive
ddrescue -f -n /dev/[from] /dev/[to] rescue.log
check filesystem for corruption
fsck -f /dev/[device]
fix partition table
testdisk
disk recue manual
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Disk_cloning

NTFS undelete

recover deleted files from NTFS partition and store them in the specified directory
sudo ntfsundelete [drive] -u -m '*' -d [directory]
optimistic recovery with -o (recover files even if only partial file exists)
sudo ntfsundelete [drive] -u -o -m '*' -d [directory]
examples
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery/NtfsUndelete

creating iso files

create iso for device
dd if=/dev/[device] of=[file-path]
create iso for files in a directory
mkisofs -o [file].iso [directory]

disk erasure

completely erase data on drive
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/[sd?]