Partition Wizardry

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Sun, Dec 18, 2005 at 03:11:07PM -0500, John Wildberger wrote:
> I intend to add a second HD to my system, but am a little 
> concerned what this would do to my current system in terms of
> drive letters (when in winXP) and how my linux assignments would
> be affected.
> I may add, that if possible, I would like to install OS/2 to the 
> front end of the second HD and use the remainder in 3 equal space 
> partitions for future linux distros. 
> 
> Currently I have the following configuration:
> 
> Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> 
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1               1         613     4923891    b  W95 FAT32
> /dev/sda2   *         614        8906    66613522+   7  HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/sda3            8907       19457    84750907+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
> /dev/sda5            8907       10464    12514603+   b  W95 FAT32
> /dev/sda6           10465       10719     2048256   82  Linux swap / Solaris
> /dev/sda7           10720       13269    20482843+  83  Linux
> /dev/sda8           13270       15180    15350076   83  Linux
> /dev/sda9           15181       17498    18619303+  83  Linux
> /dev/sda10  *       17499       19457    15735636   83  Linux
> 
> The front end is used by the Win XP, consisting of Recovery Partition,
> NTFS partition,and a FAT32 partition. The first two are primary and the
> later is part of an extended partition.
> The extended partition also has swap and four linux distros.
> You will notice, that I have only used two primary and one extended
> partition. 
> I am not sure if I can use the inherent 4th partition also as an extended
> partition, or is one only permitted to use one extended partition per
> system?
> I am also questioning the wisdom of installing the OS/2. What troubles 
> could I expect doing this?

If you create one primary partition of a type windows can access it will
be happy.  Any more partitions will have to be logical within one
extended partition.  Not sure about OS/2 at all.  Windows XP does not
rearange drive letters the way older dos based ones did.  dos based
simply assigned drive letters in order to all primary partitions, and
then to all logical partitions in disk order.  XP assigns drive letters
based on the filesystem ID of the partition, so any new partitions get
letters assigned after any existing drives.

Len Sorensen
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