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Re: Partition table confusion



On Fri, Aug 16, 2002 at 08:42:32PM -0400, Steve Dondley wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm trying to learn as much as possible about the logical structures on a
> hard disk.  I was looking at cfdisk's printout of my partition table and I'm
> a little confused by it:
> 
> 
>          ---Starting---      ----Ending----    Start Number of
>  # Flags Head Sect Cyl   ID  Head Sect Cyl    Sector  Sectors
> -- ----- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- -------- ---------
>  1  0x80    1    1    0 0x83  239   63 1023       63  19867617
>  2  0x00  239   63 1023 0x05  239   63 1023 19867680    136080
>  3  0x00    0    0    0 0x00    0    0    0        0         0
>  4  0x00    0    0    0 0x00    0    0    0        0         0
>  5  0x00  239   63 1023 0x82  239   63 1023       63    136017
> 
> 
> Based on the ID field, Entry #1 is the regular linux partition and entry #2
> is the swap partition.  My questions are:
> 
> What is Entry #2?  It's ID is 05 which is an extended DOS partition.
> However, when I set up my hard drive, I never created this partition.  How
> did it get there?

Because you use cfdisk which always create 1 primary and rest in
extended partition.  Use "fdisk".  You can get what you want.  just type
ALT-F2 during install and run "fdisk" from console.

> How can partition #2 and partition #5 share the same start and end h,s,c
> number yet have such different start sectors (I'm assuming the 19867680 is
> LBA)?
> 
> I thought partition tables could only have 4 entries.  This table shows 5.
> Why?

Partition can have up to 4 primary.  Each primary can hold extended
pasrtitions.

> Any insight on these questions is greatly appreciated.

Play with real FDISK.  But some OS and boot loader may not understand
extreme tweekings.
-- 
~\^o^/~~~ ~\^.^/~~~ ~\^*^/~~~ ~\^_^/~~~ ~\^+^/~~~ ~\^:^/~~~ ~\^v^/~~~ +++++
 Osamu Aoki @ Cupertino CA USA
 See "User's Guide":     http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/users-guide/
 See "Debian reference": http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/
 "Debian reference" Project at: http://qref.sf.net

 I welcome your constructive criticisms and corrections.



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