Partitioning question

[Tony Arnold]

On Thu, 2006-08-03 at 17:13 +0800, Stephen Liu wrote:
> Hi Ouattara,
> 
> Tks for your advice.
> 
> > Let's take a look at that :
> > 
> >  > /dev/hda1               1        2342    18812083+   5  Extended
> >  > /dev/hda5   *           1          31      248944+  83  Linux
> >  > /dev/hda6              32        1004     7815591   83  Linux
> >  > /dev/hda7            1005        2220     9767488+  83  Linux
> >  > /dev/hda8            2221        2342      979933+  82  Linux swap
> > /
> > 
> > /dev/hda1 is Extented : This is not a "real" partition. It's a way to
> > 
> > permit more than 3 partitions on a disk. 
> 
> If I understand it correct, /dev/hda1 is part of the space on HD
> allocated to Ubuntu.  In future if the remaining space used totally by
> another OS it will be /dev/hda2.  If I'm wrong please correct me.
> 
> 
> What about/whereis /dev/hda3 and /dev/hda4?  Tks

Disks can only have 4 partitions, one of which can be an extended
partition (the others are known as primary partitions).

An extended partition is just a container and can be divided into more
partitions known as logical partitions. That is, you cannot have a file
system on a an extended partition, or to put it another way you will
never see anything mounted from hda1, in your case.

On your system hda1 is an extended partition occupying cylinders 1
through 2342. It contains the logical partitions hda5, hda6 hda7 hda8.
They are numbered that way because they are logical partitions.

If your disk has more than 2342 cylinders, then you could create up to
three more primary partitions in the remaining space and they would be
called hda2, hda3 and hda4.

Does that make sense?

Regards,
Tony.
-- 
Tony Arnold, IT Security Coordinator, University of Manchester,
IT Services Division, Kilburn Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL.
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E: tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk, H: http://www.man.ac.uk/Tony.Arnold