Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 03:58:16 -0600 From: "Teilhard Knight" <teilhk@hotpost.co.uk> To: "FreeBSD_Newbies" <freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org>, "Johnson David" <DavidJohnson@Siemens.com> Subject: Re: Partitioning Message-ID: <001b01c3dc17$47f73e10$210110ac@ARLETTE> References: <00b701c3d9d6$9c3d2ef0$210110ac@ARLETTE> <200401131136.01110.DavidJohnson@Siemens.com>
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> On Tuesday 13 January 2004 05:10 am, Teilhard Knight wrote: > > I am trying to install FreeBSD 5.1. I have created by means other > > than the installation program, a partitioning of my disk (160 Gig), > > and I want to install on one of those partitions. I have three > > primary partitions and one extended where I have installed Linux in > > one logical partition. I want FreeBSD to go in another logical > > partition. When I installed 4.7 in another computer, I had no > > problems whatsoever. > > Not possible. FreeBSD must be installed to a primary partition. At the > minimum, the root filesystem must be installed to a UFS filesystem on a > primary partition. It might have been possible that you installed to an > *extended* partition, blowing away any logical partitions underneath. > > > But with 5.1 the partitioning utility only sees > > the primary partitions, the first three and the extended one as a > > whole. > > That is correct, and by design. FreeBSD uses a different partitioning > scheme that is not compatible with Microsoft's. IIRC, the original > design of the PC assumed that each OS would have it's own primary > partition. > > An analogy would be to think of primary partitions as houses, with > logical partitions as subdividing a house into apartments. FreeBSD is > not prevented from visiting other houses and apartments, but it must > reside in its own house. Linux gets away with using Microsoft logical > partitions because it is a squatter. It is using an empty apartment > logically owned by another operating system. > > > It sees the extended partition as one partition without the > > logical ones created there. Apparently I must have the partition for > > FreeBSD as FAT, but other tools do not help me because the partition > > is too large to be FAT. > > FreeBSD must be installed to the partition of type 165, not FAT, NTFS, > EXT2, or anything else. It can access filesystems on others, but it > cannot be installed to them. > > When you create your primary partitions, you must mark one of them as > BSD (165). If you are creating them with FreeBSD (or Linux) fdisk, then > the option is there. But if you are using DOS/Windows fdisk, it doesn't > know about BSD partitions. So your options are to either leave > unallocated space, or mark it as FAT remembering which one it is. Then > during FreeBSD installation, create it or remark it as appropriate. > > That huge partition you are seeing is presumably the DOS extended > partition. During FreeBSD installation, you can only see the primary > partions, and an extended partition is really a primary partition. If > you try to install to this extended partitition (by remarking it as a > BSD partition), you will lose everything in the logical partitions > underneath. > > Another drawback you have to be aware of is that the extended partition > MUST be the last primary partition. For this and other reasons, I don't > like extended partitions. With room for four primary partitions, you > should rarely need an extended partition. > > Since this is freebsd-newbies, I cannot give you technical details on > installation. But as an example only, here is how one possible > partition layout for a dual boot between Windows and FreeBSD. THIS IS > ONLY AN EXAMPLE: > > 1 - primary, NTFS, Windows operating system (ad1s1 under FreeBSD) > 2 - primary, BSD (165), FreeBSD operating system (ad1s2) > 3 - primary, FAT, shared data partition (ad1s3) > > The FreeBSD partition names are given in parenthesis, and these assume a > single IDE harddrive (not SCSI or SATA). Thank you, David. I checked what I actually did in the other computer, and you are right, I installed 4.7 in a primary partition of another disk. I appreciate you taking the time to explain to me about partitioning. I now downloaded FreeBSD 5.2, and I am giving it a try. I just hope I am not too newbie to deal with it. Teilhard Knight
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