Fileserver - Unable to create partition on new disk

FWIW Webmin actually uses the commandline under the hood. But on Linux, there are often multiple tools/ways to reach a desired ends. As Webmin is written to work on a whole range of OS, it only uses fairly generic tools, whereas IMO sometimes there are better tools for the job.

Personally I find the commandline much more powerful and easier to work with. As noted, it often has multiple ways to reach a similar ends (so if something doesn't work, you can try something else). I also find it much quicker to use, and much easier to share with others, or note for next time (simply copy paste the commands somewhere). I find it also generally gives much more useful error messages. Obviously, YMMV, and I understand that on face value it can seem daunting.

Please feel free to continue as you are, but I would recommend that the best resolution to achive your ends, would be to increase the size of the current volume, or add the new volume to the LVM (as I suggested in my last message). That may also be an option via Webmin, but I don't recall and don't have time to check ATM. FWIW you can add an unformatted, unpartitioned volume to an LVM (the extend the partition across the LVM).

Another option would be to manually create a new VM (with the disk size you desire right from the start) and install from the ISO (instead of using the OVA - with a preconfigured vHDD).

To specifically answer your question; modern HDDs (including virtual HDDs) should not need any cylinder info when formatting (because they actually don't use cylinders). So using whatever the defaults are should be fine. Although if that isn't working for you, perhaps try leaving a 2kB gap at the start (i.e. 2048 bytes) as you suggest.

Seeing as you intend to access the disk via Windows file sharing, you shouldn't need to use any specific filesystem (the Linux default should be ext4 - which should be fine).

I hope that helps...

I installed Fileserver as it has a GUI interface.  Since I can barely spell command line.  What is the point of the GUI then?

I have added the disk in VMware and the GUI sees the second disk.  The GUI format comes up with the 1st cylinder is invalid.  Are you saying the GUI format commands do not work and I have to manually do all of this?

The default format shows up as 1 through the total amount of cylinders.  Should the first number be 2048?

Since my intent is to use this as a Windows domain client accessible file server what format type should I be using on the data drive? I do not want to share anything on the boot drive.

Also, by default, our OVF install uses LVM. We have a dated, but still relevant blog post on how to add additional space via adding a new volume to the LVM here.

If you'd rather not go that route and just want to manually add a new volume as an independent volume, then steps are something like this: