I have an external storage which i tried to expand(with succes) and then de-expand(no succees). The Storage manager didn't support this type of function so i had to create again the physical and logical drives.

I had to clear the partition since linux was indicating different partition size and physical size with corrupt partition table error message

so I used
fdisk /dev/sdb
and the prompt
: o (create a new empty dos partition table) and
: w

after that
mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdb
mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb /stdb

the drive mounts OK but when i issue
fdisk -l
it gives me the following

Disk /dev/sdb: 291.4 GB, 291481059328 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 35437 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

What does this mean (doesn't contain a valid partition table)

It seems that the drive works OK (copying files) but is it?

Thank you.
Teo Emmanuel

You made a small mistake:
you created an empty partition table, but didn't add any partitions.
I find it a bit strange it works, but apparently it does? I have no idea if it can be reliable, if I were you I'd redo it:

in fdisk, add a partition with
# fdisk /dev/sdb
a (for add)
1 (partition number)
then let it cover the entire disk, simply accept default start & end.
w (write and exit)

Maybe all your files are still on it? Could be worth checking, it might be you don't have to reformat - again, I have no idea if the partition can be relied upon without reformatting.

1 members found this post helpful.

Wow, it worked. Thanks alot.

I'm quite new to this and it didn't cross my mind.
add partition is 'n', at least in my distro.

I'am not concerned about the files, yet, because i am doing some testing with the raid.

Thanks again.
Teo

Did I say 'a'? Oooppss ... that was a typo, it sure is 'n'!
Anyway, glad it worked!

I have created RAID 5 using hda5,hda6 and hda7 while installing RHEL 5.
But still it works. But for the #fdisk -l command I got the message "Disk /dev/md0 doesn't contain a valid partition table"

whatis the wrong?

[root@dhcp6-85 ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40060403712 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4870 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 14 1288 10241437+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 1289 1419 1052257+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda4 1420 4870 27720157+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 1420 1550 1052226 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda6 1551 1681 1052226 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/hda7 1682 1812 1052226 fd Linux raid autodetect

Disk /dev/md0: 3232 MB, 3232235520 bytes
2 heads, 4 sectors/track, 789120 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8 * 512 = 4096 bytes

Disk /dev/md0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Exactly nothing. fdisk is trying to look for partition table on /dev/md0 device. It cannot find it there so it gives this information. fdisk cannot in any way guess that /dev/md0 is not a 'real' disk (strange but true).