Just how many partitions CAN you have?
Wes Taylor
I want to add Linux to my computer. My single hard drive currently has
Boot Manager, a primary partiton for booting OS/2 in HPFS format, an
extended partition for a FAT and a second HPFS logical drive, and a
primary partition set aside for Linux. The installation documentation
(Redhat 5) strongly recommends multiple partitions for Linux. As far as
I can tell, I cannot subdivide a primary partition into more
partitions.
The most detailed information I have been able to find on partitioning
is in the OS/2 installation book. It assumes that you may be installing
DOS partitions. It doesn't address file systems that OS/2 won't
recognize.
My questions are:
In order to get the multiple partitions for Linux, should I change the
primary partition set aside for Linux to a logical partition, or
multiple logical partitions?
In a primary partition, the boot record is at the beginning of the
partition, if I correctly understand what's going on. What about for
booting from a logical partition? Especially if the operating system
does not reside on the first logical drive in the extended/logical
partition?
Can I make a small primary partition for booting Linux, then add more
logical partitions above that? I would end up with something that looks
like this
lowest sector
Primary HPFS partition
Logical FAT partiton
Logical HPFS partition
Primary Linux Partiton
Logical Linux Partition
Logical Linux Partiton
etc.
Highest sector.
Any help, or pointers to more detailed information about partitioning
hard drives would be greatly appreciated.
Wes Taylor
n933...@cc.wwu.edu
Trevor Hemsley
On Fri, 19 Dec 1997 21:41:47 -0500, Wes Taylor wrote:
->I want to add Linux to my computer. My single hard drive currently has
->Boot Manager, a primary partiton for booting OS/2 in HPFS format, an
->extended partition for a FAT and a second HPFS logical drive, and a
->primary partition set aside for Linux. The installation documentation
->(Redhat 5) strongly recommends multiple partitions for Linux. As far as
->I can tell, I cannot subdivide a primary partition into more
->partitions.
->The most detailed information I have been able to find on partitioning
->is in the OS/2 installation book. It assumes that you may be installing
->DOS partitions. It doesn't address file systems that OS/2 won't
->recognize.
->
->My questions are:
->
->In order to get the multiple partitions for Linux, should I change the
->primary partition set aside for Linux to a logical partition, or
->multiple logical partitions?
Linux doesn't have to be installed in a primary partition so you could
delete it and redefine it as multiple logical drives in an extended
partition. Define the partitions using OS/2's FDISK and then go into
Linux's FDISK during the install and use the "t" command to tag each
partition with the right id number - 0x83 for the boot partitions and
0x82 for swap. Make sure that you install LILO into the superblock of
the root partition and not the MBR of the first disk.
->In a primary partition, the boot record is at the beginning of the
->partition, if I correctly understand what's going on. What about for
->booting from a logical partition? Especially if the operating system
->does not reside on the first logical drive in the extended/logical
->partition?
Linux boots fine from a logical drive anywhere that is accessible to
the BIOS on your computer. On one of my machines it's installed into
the second logical drive on the master IDE drive on the secondary IDE
controller. Boot Manager finds it and loads it OK.
->Can I make a small primary partition for booting Linux, then add more
->logical partitions above that? I would end up with something that looks
->like this
Yes, if you want.
Trevor Hemsley, London, UK
(Trevor-...@dial.pipex.com or 75704...@compuserve.com)
Raimo Koski
In <349B30...@cc.wwu.edu>, Wes Taylor <n933...@cc.wwu.edu> writes:
>I want to add Linux to my computer. My single hard drive currently has
I try to provide a generic answer. The main partition table has 4 entries.
To overcome partition number limitation the extended partition type was
agreed. Extended partition is just a container for logical partitions. Logical
partition tables specify one logical partition and a link to next logical
partition table, thus forming a linked list of logical partition tables. In
theory there is no limit for logical partitions, but dos, OS/2 and NT can
handle only 24 hard disk partitions. Linux has some limit per disk, but
many distributions include block special device files only for 16 or 20,
the rest you must make yourself.
I don't know of any OS which would understand or be able to make
more than one extended partition, nor is there any need.
As I said, the main partition table has only four entries of wich extended
partition takes one, Boot manager an another. Dos must be started from
primary partition. There you have three partitions already and in most cases
that is enough, the rest will be logical.
OS/2 can boot from logical, also Linux and NT. For Linux you must install
Lilo in the Linux boot partition for Boot Manager to regocnize it as bootable
and that is the best way also to pass parameters to Linux kernel.
Linux can use partitions and files for swap. I prefer files because changing
their size is much easier and you can have max 8 of max 128 MB swap files.
Some say partitions are better because of speed, but RAM is cheap if speed
is that important.
I have noticed no limitation in the order different types of logical partitions must
be made. Some older versions of dos get confused if they see a foreign file
system type and don't try to "mount" following partitions.
Linux fdisk is not able to resize extended partition, OS/2 fdisk does it when
needed and you don't even notice how smart it is in that respect. Often the
easiest way is to make partitions first with OS/2 fdisk and only change their
file system id bytes (83h for ext2, 82h for swap) for Linux with Linux fdisk.
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