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Date:      Sat, 15 Sep 2001 23:31:20 -0400
From:      Brian T.Schellenberger <bts@babbleon.org>
To:        Fergus Cameron <cameron@argus-systems.com>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: i dont unsterstand the disk label maker
Message-ID:  <01091523312002.16877@i8k.babbleon.org>
In-Reply-To: <20010914151110.A2094@dedog.argus-systems.co.uk>
References:  <1000475917.3ba20d0dee7b2@webmail.neomedia.it> <20010914151110.A2094@dedog.argus-systems.co.uk>

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On Friday 14 September 2001 10:11, Fergus Cameron wrote:
> > Fdisk makes (Unix) slices (the same as DOS *primary* partitions);
> > disklabel actually makes (Unix) partitions (subdivisions within a slice).
>
> i think you have the terminology back to front & technically there is no
> DOS partition involved.
>
> there IBM partitions on your disk.  BSD will take one of those partions for
> it's own & allow you to create slices within it.

Not quite.

There are BIOS partitions on your disk, which FreeBSD calls "slices"; eg, 
ad0s1.

Within them there are Unix partitions, not slices.

>
> you can therefore have on BSD partition with many slices.

No, you can have a BSD slice (BIOS partition) with many partitions.

>
> the other three paritions can be of another type, DOS, EXT_DOS, etc.

BSD slices / BIO partitions

> i would think of unix slices like logical drives in DOS.  you take one
> primary partion & allow many logical elements inside it.

Yes, BSD partitions are like logical partitions; BSD slices are like physical 
partitions.

>
> that aside yes, fdisk alters the fixed disk's parition table & disklabel
> changes the parition's unix labellling (i.e. slices).

                  (i.e. partitions)

That's why it's ad0s1a and so forth: 

a (what *does* the a stand for anyway)
d0 disk 0 (disks are zero-indexed)
   /* hardware controls this */
s1 slice 1 (slices are one-indexed; who said this had to make sense)
   /* fdisk controls this */
a  a=boot partition; b=swap; c=entire disk; d-h=other partitions
   /* disklabel controls this */





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-- 
Brian T. Schellenberger . . . . . . .   bts@wnt.sas.com (work)
Brian, the man from Babble-On . . . .   bts@babbleon.org (personal)
                                        http://www.babbleon.org

--------------------> Free Dmitry Sklyarov! <-------------------------

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