Partitioning Hard Drives

Disk Organization
Primary Partition Extended Partition

MBR Logical Drives

tells layout of the disk
 Use of partitions
• All OSs do NOT have the same rules for
partitioning
• MBR contains a layout of the partitioning info
• Primary Partition is always there
– may consume all space
– i.e. no Extended Partition
• Extended Partition needs to be sub-allocated
– numerous logical drives possible
– may have different OSs … more later
 Drive Naming (DOS)

Primary Partition Extended Partition

C: D: E: F:

MBR
tells layout of the disk Logical Drives

Assuming no other drives and only DOS

 Primary, Extended, Logical

• DOS was only programmed to see one

normal partition.
• All other “partitions (logical drives)” had to
be enclosed in an Extended partition
• Other OSs such as linux do not require an
extended partition but can see and use them
 2 Drives (DOS)

Primary Partition Extended Partition Master

C: E: F:

MBR
tells layout of the disk Logical Drives
Slave
Primary Partition Extended Partition

D: G: H:

MBR
tells layout of the disk Logical Drives
 How Do You Partition?

• The OS has a program called “fdisk”

• Linux and DOS both have fdisk and have
varying degrees of compatibility.
• Linux sees DOS
– will let you create DOS partitions
• DOS sees Linux as Non-Dos.
– Will not create Non-Dos
 Using DOS fdisk

• Create primary partition

• Create extended partition if necessary
• Create logical partitions within extended
• Exit fdisk and reboot
• Format each of the drives
• Be sure to make the primary partition
bootable (format c: /s)
 Multi-booting machines
• Using more than one OS on the same
machine
• The MBR also tells the BIOS which partition
to boot from.
• Different OSs use different boot loaders so
they may periodically need to be reset
– (fdisk /mbr)
• Some boot loaders (DOS) only allow for
booting their OS. E.g. DOS.
 Multi-booting machines (ctd)

• Linux lets you choose

– lilo
– grub
• Some boot loaders have funny restrictions
– boot partition must be on master drive
– boot partition must be in first 1024 cylinders
– most newer ones do not have those restrictions
• can boot from any partition
 Multibooting (funny)

Non Primary DOS Extended Partition

Dos Partition

C: NonDos D: E:

MBR 1024 cyl

tells layout of the disk Logical Drives
 Why partition?
• OS may not support a logical drive as big as
your disk; make the physical drive multiple
logical drives. BIOS has it’s limitations too!
• May not want all of the disk to expire at the
same time (system versus user space)
• Multiple OSs on the same disk (multi-boot)
• Different permissions/access
• Different File systems
Can you alter after loading files?

• Yes, but not a trivial process

• Typically these applications are available.
• Some freeware .. Some not
• Available in linux and DOS/windows
• Partition Magic is a good program that
supports linux and windows file systems
• Typically reboot from a floppy while
changing
 How much space?

• Always depends on the question .. What are

you going to store on it?
• Multiboot
– Windows 98 needs >1G for bare installation
– linux needs >1G depending on installation
• linux only
– installation program will optimize allocation if
you let it to handle the problem of preserving
system space as needed.
 Booting UP

• Bootloader determines which OS is used

– lets you manually override
– may boot with floppy to override
• BIOS has MORE control
– which drive first
• CDROM (installations)
• Hard Drive - Typically
• Floppy - To override hard drive