Using extended partitions.. ?

Jerry McAllister jerrymc at clunix.cl.msu.edu
Fri Jul 28 22:14:46 UTC 2006


> 
> I've wanted to try  this for a  long time,  but  I believed  its  not
> possible,  but  never  asked  anyone so....
> 
> Is  it possible to have multiple freebsd slices (partitions)  on a
> single disk ?  For  example, I  already got a  fbsd slice  with
> partitions in it,  now  I  want to  add  another and  use that  space,
> after deleting  a windoze partition.

Sure that should be no problem.   
Presumably the current freebsd slice is at least slice 2, or maybe 3.
You are addressing it as ad0s2 (or da0s2 SCSI) or ad0s3 (da0s3 if SCSI)

The Microsloth slice is probably slice 1 and would then become
FreeBSD slice 1 addressed as ad0s1 (da0s1 if SCSI).   

The exception would be if the vendor used up a slice number with 
a diagnostic slice ('partition').   Then all the 's' numbers move
up one.    ie ad0s4 becomes ad0s4 and ad0s2 becomes ad0s3 and the
Microsloth slice becomes ad0s2 (da0s2 if SCSI).

All this works just peachy.

> 
> What about using  an  extended  logical  partition  as  a freebsd  slice?
> 

I am not so sure about the MS extended logical partitions.  I don't
muck in MS much and haven't yet dealt with one, so I could be mangling
this pretty badly.  But, I kind of thought they were additional divisions 
within an existing slice (MS 'partition') and thus wneh you wump the 
existing MS slice, it will go away along with its parent slice and the 
space will just be part of it.   

> I  am   quite comfortable  with  linus  fdisk, but  the  fbsd one
> feels like the plauge to me.  Is  the  linux  port of fdisk a  better
> choice?

If you are putting on FreeBSD, use the FreeBSD fdisk or just let
sysinstall do it all for you.   If you select the right options
in the sysinstall disk slice/partition screens, it will all happen
with no problem. 

> I run all  my linux partitions  from within  ext-logical ones (all
> but root) and  I want to   clear them and reuse them for freebsd.

Well, then it sounds like you are pretty much wiping the disk
except for the FreeBSD slice.   In sysinstall (running from the 
installation CD in fixit/shell mode) just choose to 'delete'
those parts and then choose to create them as FreeBSD slices.
If they are contiguous, then make them all one big FreeBSD slice.

Anyway, even if I got the Extended partition idea all wrong, the
FreeBSD part is correct and will work.

Have fun,

////jerry
> 
> Please cc  me as I am not subscribed.
> 
> -- 
> Rgrds
> GobbledeGeek
> [Everything but Gobbledegook.. !!]
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