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Date:      Wed, 10 Feb 1999 16:15:20 -0500 (EST)
From:      zhihuizhang <bf20761@binghamton.edu>
To:        Bill Hamilton <billh@finsco.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Partition with Partition Magic
Message-ID:  <Pine.SOL.L3.93.990210152311.9110D-100000@bingsun1>
In-Reply-To: <36BB076C.A9E9CAA9@finsco.com>

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> When Partition Magic lists the partitions out, the extended shows on a
> line by itself. But of course, that is not correct. You have 7
> partitions inside the extended. You need to rearrange these so that the
> free one is at the end or the beginning and then shrink the extended,
> leaving the free space as a primary partition. Don't format it, since
> the program only does MS type formats. If you do, you just have to
> select "delete" on it before FreeBSD will deal with it. Well, maybe not,
> but it would be less confusing in fdisk to just see it as free space.  I
> don't know what version of PM you have, but in mine you cannot move or
> resize a Linux partition. Maybe in the latest version you can. But if
> the free one is at the end already, I guess you're ok. Just start by
> deleting that fat partition and shrink the extended. 
> 

I am using Partition Magic 3.02 and I have free space as a primary
partition.  The PC already has Linux, DOS 6, and Windows NT installed.
The pqmagict.exe shows there are three primary partitions available and
their sizes are 31.3MB, 4769.2MB, and 1349.2MB respectively.  The first
two are also shown in the DOS fdisk command.  The second primary partition
contains 7 subpartition: 4 labeled as Linux Ext2, 2 labeled as Linux swap,
and 1 labeled as NTFS (I guess this is for Windows NT).

I insert CD-ROM and reboot from it.  At the FDISK screen, I see four
entries:

offset    size      end   name  ptype   desc   subtype
0         63       62      -     6      unused
63      64197     64259   wd0s1  2      fat      4   <-- DOS
64260   9767520   9831779 wd0s2  4      extended 5   <-- extended primary
9831780 2363180  12594959 wd0s3  3      freebsd  165   CA

My question is: How come FreeBSD regard the first entry as unused?  Why
Partition Magic does not show this entry (It only shows the last three,
wd0s1-wd0s3)? Why there are FOUR entries instead of THREE entries (each
represent a primary partition)?  Where does the extra entry (first one) 
come from?

By the way, I installed FreeBSD on another PC successfully and devoted ALL
disk space to FreeBSD on that machine.  Still, I got the mysterious first
entry labeled as unused.  I read in an installation tutorial that it is
for boot sectors.  But for this PC, where can we find those 62 sectors
that seems to be required by FreeBSD?

Maybe I have to install FreeBSD FIRST (before other OSs) to make sure
FreeBSD can use the first 62 sectors.  I try to find the start sector of
the DOS partition to see if there is any conflict, but Partition Magic has
no such information for the first active DOS partition (I can get similar
information on other partitions). 

Anyway, I install FreeBSD on the last partition "successfully" and reboot.

The System Commander does find the FreeBSD partition.  But when I try to
boot from it.  It says "read error" and the system halts.

Any idea?  Thanks for you help.


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