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



On 9/18/2012 4:46 PM, lee wrote:
Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> writes:

On Ma, 18 sep 12, 19:24:45, lee wrote:

2) Is "msdos" a valid option to choose for this hard drive?

Is "msdos" a useful partition type for you?  Try "Linux", and if it
works, you can try to change it to msdos.

Partition *table*, not *type* ;)

Are you sure there is such a thing as an "msdos" partition table?  There
seem to be a couple types of partition tables, and "msdos" doesn't seem
to be amongst them[1].  Then there are "partition types" and "partition
type codes", see [2].

The OP probably refers to the "partition type code", more commonly
referred to as partition type.  IIRC fdisk does that.  If it does,
perhaps we should file a bug against fdisk to have that changed to
"partition type code"?


[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_table
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partition




There is confusion here between partition table type and partition type. The partition table holds information about the different partitions. An msdos partition *table* can hold a linux partition.

Use msdos, gpt, or nothing: LVM over a physical volume, for a partition *table* type. gpt has the advantage over msdos (or just 'dos') that it supports partitions over 2TB in size.

Use linux for partitition type if you don't go for LVM.

Step one:  INitialize the disk with a partition table.
Step two:  Add some partitions.

At least one partition for the system (root---/), and probably a small one for swap. Maybe a separate one for /boot, maybe a separate one for /home.

(I use LVM, so to keep things simple, I put LVM logical volumes inside a partition (rather than on a bare disk), and put /boot on an 8GB separate partition.)




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