disk druid - extended partition?
 

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to go through Michael Jang's book "RHCE Study Guide", the book is based on RHEL3 but I'm working on RHEL4 (not sure if it matters for my question).

One of the exercises in the book (page 138) says "create an extended partition containing all the rest of the disk space and make it growable".

I don't see anywhere in the Disk Druid setup (during install time) that allows me to specify a new extended partition. Am I missing something here or reading this wrong? I don't see anyway to create a partition without a mount point which looks like he did from his chart on that page. The partition is marked "Extended". Any ideas or is this something that is different from RHEL3 to RHEL4?

thanks

disk druid...rhel4
 

does anyone know about this?

Some partitioning tools do not create extended partitions directly---rather they do it automatically when creating the first logical partition.

I would use tools like GParted or QTParted.

Also, I don't understand what is meant by "growable"

Is this in the context of using LVM?

no LVM. Its an exercise to use Disk Druid (not the LVM tab in Disk druid).

hmmm, I'm guessing RHEL3 is different from RHEL4 in this case.

FYI, growable just means "allow it to grow to the max size"

I know of no situation where partitions are "growable". Perhaps you could provide the context for this--or an example.

You can set the size of an extended partition and then change it later--is that what you mean?

http://ftp.us.xemacs.org/ftp/pub/lin...ual/doc037.htm

Can't say I've ever used this feature but...

Hmmm.....where does this feature show up in the partition table?

And why is it not in any other partitioning tool?

AFAIK:

A. It doesn't (show up in the partition table).

B. Ask Red Hat.

I haven't haven't done an RH/FC install in so long, I forgot this terminology. I believe it's just an instruction to Disk Druid. It's unfortunate that RH chose a word that better fits LVM & also has an implication of some permanent quality.

What's important to this exercise is that you understand the concept of extended partitions & know how to use Disk Druid.

Extended partitions:

• are containers for logical partitions.
• can number only one (or zero -- you don't have to have one).
• technically, are a special type of primary partition.

Trying to put it succinctly, but completely, I would say:
The normal MBR (Master Boot Record) can hold a maximum of four (4) primary partitions, only one (1) of which is allowed to be an extended partition.

Apologies to anyone who already knows any of this, I'm writing for those who come after.

Hi Domp,, if i am not wrong you want to make an extending partition during the instalation but i guess you cant make it during installation,,
you can only provide partitions ,,, and rest of the free space is just free space at the moment (but not extended at the moment)
when you finish your installation you can see all your root,swap and boot and usr bla bla and rest of the free space YOU CANT SEE
so to able to grow ur partitions u need to make the rest of partions as extended by using fdisk /dev/hda(if using IDE),fdisk /dev/sda(if using SATA or SCSI)
and dnt give any limit and it will make ur rest of space as extended,,
i hope this will help you:)

I'm not clear on what you are saying here---any partitioning tool I have ever seen will make extended partitions one way or the other. Sometimes it happens simply by specifying a logical partition, which in turn forces the creation of an extended.

I guess origionally the person was asking tht he cannot see his extending partion in the partions after the installations.
the extended partion is already there but you cannot see the word "Extended",,i guess he meant by that !