partprobe

Additional Notes

partprobe informs the operating system kernel about changes to the partition table on a disk device. After modifying the partition table with tools like parted, fdisk, or gdisk, the kernel needs to re-read the partition table for the new partitions to appear as device nodes (e.g., /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2).

While the kernel automatically re-reads the partition table in many cases, partprobe is useful when the kernel does not detect changes automatically or when partitions on an in-use disk need to be rescanned without rebooting. It avoids the more aggressive blockdev --rereadpt or hdparm -z approaches.

Syntax

partprobe [options] [device...]

Parameters

• device: One or more disk devices to rescan, such as /dev/sda. If no device is given, all devices are probed.

Common Options

• -d, --dry-run: Show what would be done without actually doing it.
• -s, --summary: Show a summary of partition information for each device.
• -h, --help: Show help and exit.
• -v, --version: Show version information.

Examples

partprobe

Re-read the partition table on all disk devices.

partprobe /dev/sda

Notify the kernel about changes to /dev/sda only.

partprobe -s /dev/sdb

Show a summary of partitions on /dev/sdb after probing.

sudo partprobe /dev/nvme0n1

Re-read the partition table on an NVMe device.

partprobe -d /dev/sda

Dry run: show what would be done but do not make changes.

Practical Notes

• partprobe is part of the parted package. Install it with sudo apt install parted or sudo yum install parted.
• If the kernel cannot re-read the partition table (e.g., the disk is in use), partprobe may report EBUSY. In such cases, a reboot may be necessary.
• After partprobe, new partition device files appear under /dev/. Run lsblk or fdisk -l to verify.
• For devices using device-mapper (LVM, multipath), partprobe may not suffice. Use partx -a or kpartx -a in those scenarios.
• Use udevadm settle after partprobe in scripts to ensure all udev rules have processed the new partitions.