From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Dec 28 14:14:20 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ABC53106566C for ; Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:14:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 39C578FC1E for ; Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:14:20 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-195-26-31.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.26.31]) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9C9031F43A; Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:14:18 +0100 (CET) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id nBSEEGQE001526; Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:14:17 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:14:16 +0100 From: Polytropon To: Fbsd1 Message-Id: <20091228151416.07a2f22d.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <4B38ACF9.2050705@a1poweruser.com> References: <4B296E66.6030405@a1poweruser.com> <20091217064959.e62bfdbb.freebsd@edvax.de> <20091217151140.GA40367@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> <4B38ACF9.2050705@a1poweruser.com> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cc: Jerry McAllister , FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: re-write is this booting info correct? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:14:20 -0000 On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 21:04:57 +0800, Fbsd1 wrote: > The Microsoft/Windows fdisk program is used to allocate partitions on > the hard drive. This program allocated two types of partitions “primary > dos partition” and “extended dos partition”. Just a formal addition: "primary DOS partition" - DOS stands for "Disk Operating System", it's an abbreviation. You're stating this later on, but you should do it at its first occurance. > A single “primary dos partition” occupying all the space on the hard > drive would be assigned drive letter C. The "drive letters" used seem to include the ":" as a part, so it would be "C:" instead of plain "C". > An alternate method is to allocate an “extended dos partition” and then > sub-divide it into logical dos drives lettered C, D, E, F. I think the term is "logical volume inside an extended DOS partition"; I'm not very familiar with their english names, but that would correspond to the correct german name (found in german versions of DOS); the term is "volume" or "drive". I've got no english DOS documentation here, so I can't check for the correct term. German: "Primäre DOS-Partition" and "Logisches Laufwerk in einer erweiterten DOS-Partition", and "Laufwerk" means "drive", but I think I recall that DOS uses "volume" for this... > One of these > “primary dos partitions” or one of the logical dos drives in the > “extended dos partition” must be set as the active partition to boot > from. I'm not sure you can actually boot from a logical volume inside an extended DOS partition... as far as I remember, booting can only take place from a primary DOS partition. > FreeBSD’s fdisk program allocates disk space into slices. A FreeBSD > slice is the same thing as a Microsoft/Windows “primary dos partition”. > FreeBSD has nothing akin to an “extended dos partition”. It quite has - its slices (which are subdivided just as the extended DOS partitions are, so its partitions are like - but not the same as - the logical volumes inside a DOS extended partition). > The > Microsoft/Windows partition and the FreeBSD slice is where the operating > system software is installed. No. The software is installed on the partitions inside a slice, or, to be more exact, in the file system that the partition holds. There can be of course one partition coviering the whole slice, so "partition(s)" would be a valid term. > The FreeBSD > ‘disk label’ program is used to sub-divide the slice into smaller chunks > called partitions. In a standard install of FreeBSD, these partitions > are the default directory names used by the operating system. Not "are" - they _refer_ to them (or are refered to by then), e. g. the default directory name / is the root directory, but /dev/ad0s1a is the partition; /usr is the directory for { UNIX system resources | user binaries and libraries }, but /dev/ad0s1g is (maybe) the partition that holds this data. In settings where one partition convers the whole slice, there are no further mountpoints for the divisions of functional parts of the system. > The motherboard standard which was created in the days before windows > desktop were even though of yet and at which time Microsoft DOS (disk > operating system) was the only thing available. Sure. :-) > This hard drive 512-byte MBR is where all the limitations are. Do to > it’s size the MBR partition table is limited to 4 entries. Due to its size... > This means no > matter how large your hard drive is (20MG or 200GB) you can only > sub-divide it into a maximum 4 slices/partitions. 20MB. But I'd like to have a 20 machine gun hard disk, too. :-) > The default MBR code written by the Microsoft/Windows fdisk program is > hard coded to boot the C drive. The FreeBSD fdisk program has option to > write a simple boot menu program to the MBR. You could add that this program is called the "FreeBSD boot manager", because that's its actual name. Everything else seems to be correct to me, as well as written in an appealing way, and technically understandable. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...