[CentOS] mounting & partitioning Seagate FreeAgent external HD

[James A. Peltier]

Tim McGeary wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> As a disclaimer, I'm new to this list and very green administering 
> CentOS.  I run it on my test servers and do very basic networking and 
> server administration (most users, permissions, and web app stuff).
>
> I have a backup server that I am using rsync to collect important 
> in-process file for our digital library from both Windows and Linux 
> servers, as well as a specific applications which are updated on a 
> separate test server.
>
> This backup server ran out of space and I have no more internal slots 
> available to add another disk, so I bought a 750 GB Seagate FreeAgent 
> external USB hard drive.  I've seen some various issues out there 
> about how Seagate FA HDs go into sleep mode when used in the manner I 
> want to, but all of the people posting about that seemed to be able to 
> mount theirs with no problem.
>
> I can see the device in my /proc/bus/usb/devices file, but fdisk -l 
> doesn't show it at all.  I was trying to mount and partition it using 
> Webmin, but I can't figure out the device name I need to give it to 
> mount and partition it.  How is the best way to figure that out?  This 
> particular server is running CentOS 4.
>
> Thanks,
> Tim
>
If it's a brand new drive it will not have a valid partition table. A 
simple sudo /sbin/fdisk -l will show all drives and their partition 
tables.  The one with an invalid partition table is the one you're 
interested in.