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haertig, saikee and pixellany,
Thanks for your in-depth answers. It certainly helped me understand partitions better but also confused me a wee bit.
To clarify what has been posted:
1) There can only ever been 4 primary and extended partitions
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In the 1st sector (or any sector), there are only 4 entires allowed. Extended partitions are pointers, and I am not sure there is a limit.
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2) There can be a maximum of 63 partitions
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Not sure about this. There are normally 63 sectors of space reserved for things like partition tables and boot code, but this can be changed. Within the 63 sectors, you have 4 entries in #0--eg 3 primary + 1 extended. That leaves 62 places to put logical partitions. Total=66 usable partitions. (Don't take my word for any of this.....
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3) There can be a maximum of 59 logical partitions
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See above
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4) Linux does not require a primary partition but it is advisable (is this true and if so why?)
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Does not require and is not even advisable/recommended--I think it simply does not care. What counts is that the boot code is able to point to the partition and directory where the kernel is.
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5) A logical partition is an extension of an extended partition to help overcome the barrier/limitation of 4 partitions
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No---An extended partition is a pointer to a logical partition. (The last part is correct)
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6) What is the "First Sector of Track Zero" and I assume the 'Partition table' portion of the MBR is an index of all the partitions?
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I think "1st sector of track 0" is synomous with "sector 0" This is where the mbr goes. Partition table in sector 0 is NOT a list of all the partition--see other notes for the details.
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7) If Linux does not require an 'active' flag to denote which partition to boot from, how does it know which partition to mount and boot from or does it simply look for the /boot partition under /?
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The boot code tells the system where to look for the kernel. For example, look at the structure of a GRUB config file.