mjhjmtu

I created my virtual disk (1024MB):

~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=MyDrive.img iflag=fullblock bs=1M count=1024 && sync

Case 1:

Now I'm going to configure it with inside parted to Partitioning / formatting MyDrive.img:

~$ parted MyDrive.img
(parted) mklabel msdos
(parted) mkpart primary NTFS 1 1024
(parted) align-check optimal 1

Result:

(parted) print
 Model: (file)
 Disk /home/user/test/MyDrive.img: 1074MB
 Sector size (logical / physical): 512B / 512B
 Table of partitions: msdos
 Disk Flags: 

 Start Number End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 1024MB 1023MB primary ntfs lba

Verifying partition:

~$ sudo losetup loop1 MyDrive.img
~$ sudo -H gparted /dev/loop1

So far, so good. Now the problem...

Case 2:

If I want to launch the "parted" from command line (in terminal; outside parted), with the same commands, i do not get the same result:

 ~$ parted -s MyDrive.img mklabel msdos
 ~$ parted -s MyDrive.img mkpart primary NTFS 1 1024
 ~$ parted -s MyDrive.img align-check optimal 1
 ~$ parted -s MyDrive.img set 1 lba on

Out:

 ~$ parted -s MyDrive.img print
 Model: (file)
 Disk /home/user/test/MyDrive.img: 1074MB
 Sector size (logical / physical): 512B / 512B
 Table of partitions: msdos
 Disk Flags: 

 Start Number End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 1024MB 1023MB primary 

Problem: Missing NTFS and LBA (The same thing happens with ext3, ext4, etc)

Cause:

 ~$ parted -s MyDrive.img mklabel msdos # Works
 ~$ parted -s MyDrive.img mkpart primary NTFS 1 1024 # Not Work
 ~$ parted -s MyDrive.img align-check optimal 1 # Works
 ~$ parted -s MyDrive.img set 1 lba on # Not Work

Question:

How to correctly execute "parted" with option "-s" (--script) directly from command line in terminal (case 2) to get the same output (Case 1)?

Thanks

parted uses odd units by default, so it's better to specify it.

(parted) unit MiB

or

(parted) mkpart ... 1MiB 1024MiB

There is no need to do an alignment check if you know your partition starts at 1MiB.

The set 1 lba on command actually changes the partition type to Linux. That might come as a bit of a surprise, but it's normal for parted's set to change partition types (other options are raid, lvm, ...).

Other than that detail, the result of your operations are completely identical. The difference in output is merely an optical problem.

It might be a remnant of old parted that used to create the filesystems themselves, instead of partitions only.(*) If you want the ntfs to stick, you actually have to mkntfs one.

Your interactive method:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=MyDrive.img iflag=fullblock bs=1M count=1024 && sync
# parted MyDrive.img 
GNU Parted 3.2
Using /dev/shm/MyDrive.img
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) mklabel msdos 

I create a copy of it at this point so we can check and compare the other method:

(parted) ^Z 
[1]+ Stopped parted MyDrive.img
# cp MyDrive.img MyDrive-Copy.img
# fg

Onwards:

(parted) mkpart primary NTFS 1 1024
(parted) align-check optimal 1 
1 aligned
(parted) print 
Model: (file)
Disk /dev/shm/MyDrive.img: 1074MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 1024MB 1023MB primary ntfs lba

Shows ntfs and lba but print it again and it's gone:

# parted MyDrive.img
GNU Parted 3.2
Using /dev/shm/MyDrive.img
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print 
Model: (file)
Disk /dev/shm/MyDrive.img: 1074MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 1024MB 1023MB primary

Your 2nd method using terminal commands, performed on the copy:

# parted MyDrive-Copy.img mkpart primary NTFS 1 1024
# parted MyDrive-Copy.img align-check optimal 1
1 aligned
# parted MyDrive-Copy.img print
Model: (file)
Disk /dev/shm/MyDrive-Copy.img: 1074MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 1024MB 1023MB primary

Are there actually any differences?

# cmp -l MyDrive.img MyDrive-Copy.img && echo Identical || echo Different
Identical

(Without the copy method, they would have different disk identifiers as it's random every time you mkpart. With GPT partitions, each individual partition would also have a unique PARTUUID so the method does not apply to other partitioning schemes, or rather you have to check what the differing bytes represent.)

So, you do get the same result after all, unless the commands are different (there was no set in your first example).

(*)

To make the confusion perfect, after mkntfs on the partition, parted detects NTFS to be present and set 1 lba on does not set Linux as partition type anymore. This also means with random data on the disk you might get random results in your partition table.

So there may be a point to specifying NTFS when you mkpart after all. parted remembers this type for the current session and acts accordingly when picking partition types. Translated to the terminal, it might be best to do it all in one command.

# parted MyDrive.img 
 mklabel msdos 
 mkpart primary NTFS 1 1024 
 set 1 lba on 
 align-check optimal 1 
 print

Model: (file)
Disk /dev/shm/MyDrive.img: 1074MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 1049kB 1024MB 1023MB primary ntfs lba