Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 4 - INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION Administration Manual page 101

Chapter 5. Managing Storage
Use your network to copy the data to another system with sufficient free space, and restore after
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installing the new disk drive
Use the space physically occupied by a third disk drive by:
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1. Temporarily removing the third disk drive
2. Temporarily installing the new disk drive in its place
3. Copying the data to the new disk drive
4. Removing the old disk drive
5. Replacing it with the new disk drive
6. Reinstalling the temporarily-removed third disk drive
Temporarily install the original disk drive and the new disk drive in another computer, copy the data
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to the new disk drive, and then install the new disk drive in the original computer
Once you have an available connector in which to plug the new disk drive, you must make sure that
the drive's SCSI ID is set appropriately. To do this, you must know what all of the other devices on
the bus (including the controller) are using for their SCSI IDs. The easiest way to do this is to access
the SCSI controller's BIOS. This is normally done by pressing a specific key sequence during the
system's power-up sequence. You can then view the SCSI controller's configuration, along with the
devices attached to all of its buses.
Next, you must consider proper bus termination. When adding a new disk drive, the rule is actually
quite straightforward — if the new disk drive is the last (or only) device on the bus, it must have
termination enabled. Otherwise, termination must be disabled.
At this point, you can move on to the next step in the process — partitioning your new disk drive.
5.7.4.1.2. Partitioning
Once the disk drive has been installed, it is time to create one or more partitions to make the space
available to your operating system. Although the tools vary depending on the operating system, the
basic steps are the same:
1. Select the new disk drive
2. View the disk drive's current partition table, to ensure that the disk drive to be partitioned is, in
fact, the correct one
3. Delete any unwanted partitions that may already be present on the new disk drive
4. Create the new partition(s), being sure to specify the desired size and partition type
5. Save your changes and exit the partitioning program
Warning
When partitioning a new disk drive, it is vital that you are sure the disk drive you are about to partition
is the correct one. Otherwise, you may inadvertently partition a disk drive that is already in use,
resulting in lost data.
Also make sure you have decided on the best partition size. Always give this matter serious thought,
because changing it later is much more difficult than taking a bit of time now to think things through.
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