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Old 03-07-2005, 08:30 AM   #1
kpachopoulos
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partitions


How many extended partitions can i create in one HD? According to fdisk , i turns out that it is only one.
I know how primary and logical partitions are being used, but which is the difference between them? Why create primary (as it is usually done in the documentation) and not logical partitions? Can i install Linux/Unix in logical , not primary partitions?
Thanks
 
Old 03-07-2005, 09:38 AM   #2
perfect_circle
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Re: partitions

Quote:
Originally posted by nocturna_gr
How many extended partitions can i create in one HD? According to fdisk , i turns out that it is only one.
I know how primary and logical partitions are being used, but which is the difference between them? Why create primary (as it is usually done in the documentation) and not logical partitions? Can i install Linux/Unix in logical , not primary partitions?
Thanks
Primary Partitions

The number of partitions on an Intel-based system was limited from the very beginning: The original partition table was installed as part of the boot sector and held space for only four partition entries. These partitions are now called primary partitions.

Logical Partitions

One primary partition of a hard drive may be subpartitioned. These are logical partitions. This effectively allows us to skirt the historical four partition limitation.
The primary partition used to house the logical partitions is called an extended partition and it has its own file system type (0x05). Unlike primary partitions, logical partitions must be contiguous. Each logical partition contains a pointer to the next logical partition, which implies that the number of logical partitions is unlimited. However, linux imposes limits on the total number of any type of partition on a drive, so this effectively limits the number of logical partitions. This is at most 15 partitions total on an SCSI disk and 63 total on an IDE disk.

Quote:
How many extended partitions can i create in one HD? According to fdisk , i turns out that it is only one.
I don't know but you need only 1, since you can create many logical partitions there.

Quote:
Can i install Linux/Unix in logical , not primary partitions?
definitely YES. Only DOS and Win95/98 had those kind of limitations

Last edited by perfect_circle; 03-08-2005 at 08:05 AM.
 
Old 03-07-2005, 11:18 AM   #3
kpachopoulos
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Thanks, suntekne.
 
Old 03-08-2005, 08:16 AM   #4
perfect_circle
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Quote:
Originally posted by nocturna_gr
Thanks, suntekne.
den kanei tipota, sintekne....
 
  


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