define more partitions in freebsd

[Thomas Mueller]

> On Sat, 1 Jun 2013 11:10:32 +0430, s m wrote:
> hello all
>
> > i want to install freebsd8.2 on my system. for some reasons, i need
> > partitions more than 6. my freebsd just allow me to define partitions
> > from a to h, not any more.
        
> That's correct and expected for the MBR partitioning approach
> (which is considered "mostly outdated" today).



> > i checked FreeBSD handbook, but it doesn't say anything about defining
> > more partitions.

> Because you _cannot_ define more partitions than up to 'h'.
> This is a hard-defined limit of MBR-style partitions (as
> they are initialized with bsdlabel).



> > my question is: how can i define more partitions on my freebsd? (for
> > example, ad3s1a, ..., ad3s1h, ad3s1i, ad3s1j, ...).

> You cannot. You need to use the GPT partitioning approach
> and repartition your disk. With gpart, you can create more
> than 'h' partitions, but the partitions will have different
> names, such as ad3s1p1, ad3s1p2, ..., ad3s1p10, ad3s1p11, ...
> and so on.

        
> Polytropon
> Magdeburg, Germany
> Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
> Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...


Are you sure of this?  Can you GPT-partition an MBR slice as opposed to the whole disk?

You should get ad3p1, ad3p2, ...,ad3p10, ad3p11, ...

Then you would have to migrate an MBR partition table to GPT, if you have non-FreeBSD slices.  I don't know if gpart can do that, but Rod Smith's gdisk (included in FreeBSD ports) or gpt (still used in NetBSD but not FreeBSD) can.

Tom