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Date:      Sat, 26 Oct 2002 23:08:09 +1000 (EST)
From:      Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
To:        Mark Valentine <mark@thuvia.demon.co.uk>
Cc:        Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>, Julian Elischer <julian@elischer.org>, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>, "M. Warner Losh" <imp@bsdimp.com>, <freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/lib/libdisk Makefile chunk.c write_alpha_disk.c write_i386_disk.c write_pc98_disk.c
Message-ID:  <20021026225635.C7892-100000@gamplex.bde.org>
In-Reply-To: <200210260906.g9Q96CRx098771@dotar.thuvia.org>

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On Sat, 26 Oct 2002, Mark Valentine wrote:

> > From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>

> By the way, FreeBSD doesn't seem to be consistent about which partition it
> uses, but I've never tried to figure out when it uses partition 1 and when
> it uses partition 4, though I've seen both occur on disks with only FreeBSD
> (is it DD mode that makes the difference?).

It is consistent: the first slice with type 0xa5 is mapped to the
compatibilty slice (except with GEOM of course).  Extended partit^Wslice
types are special.  Otherwise, FreeBSD ignores the slice type as much
as possible (sort of the opposite of what you say QNX does and you
seem to want).  Any type of slice may be labeled.  Partitions of type
0xA5 may be left unlabeled, but this is warned about.

> > > How does the DOS algorithm distiguisch between partitions, if not by
> > > the order in the table?
> >
> > Not.  IIRC, it doesn't permit multiple primary DOS partitions, but logical
> > drives just move around if you add one in the middle.
>
> Indeed, you lose if you try to use this with multiple 0xA5 partitions without
> making one and only one of them "active" (or does that even make a difference?).

FreeBSD ignores the active partition flag.  The numbers of slices only
change if something moves the slice entries or if you use slices above the
fourth (in extended partit^Wslices) and delete one in the middle.

Bruce


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