From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Feb 11 07:04:01 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id HAA27612 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 07:00:45 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from bingsun2.cc.binghamton.edu (bingsun2.cc.binghamton.edu [128.226.1.6]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id HAA27587 for ; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 07:00:42 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bf20761@binghamton.edu) Received: from localhost (bf20761@localhost) by bingsun2.cc.binghamton.edu (8.8.7/8.6.9) with SMTP id KAA05611; Thu, 11 Feb 1999 10:00:26 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 10:00:26 -0500 (EST) From: zhihuizhang X-Sender: bf20761@bingsun2 To: Bill Hamilton cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Partition with Partition Magic In-Reply-To: <36C20FA0.4071A04F@finsco.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > > > 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. > > > Sounds like bad boot blocks. > If you boot off of floppy, perhaps you can repair it. > What version of FreeBSD is this? > I am using FreeBSD 2.2.8. I bought 4 CDs from Walnut Creek. Having read some of the followups, I am still confused with the unexplained first partition which is 62 sectors (its Ptype is 6 and labeled as "unused"). Even if I declare ALL disk space to FreeBSD on a machine, that partition still occurs. I hope someone can clarify this for us all. What on earth is its purpose? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message