Hi Bruce;
On Mon, 2008-06-09 at 20:03 -0700, Bruce Miller wrote:
> There is a 99% probable explanation to this apparent confusion. Operating systems (and driver specs) allow four "primary" partitions on any one physical device. The wrinkle is that the last of those partitions may be defined as an "extended" partition. A user never uses an extended partition as such. It is a "container" for a series of logical partitions. Regardless of which "primary partition" (1,2,,3 or 4) is named to be "extended", logical partition numbers *_always_* start at 5.
>
> The output you received from an interactive session is somewhat different to what I received from a read-only run of fdisk with the command 'fdisk -l /dev/sda'. Note the definition of sda4. Try running the read-only command (it's also less dangerous), and see if you too find a definition of an extended partition:
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x0002c303
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/sda1 1 1305 10482381 83 Linux
> /dev/sda2 1306 1560 2048287+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
> /dev/sda3 * 1561 1573 104422+ 83 Linux
> /dev/sda4 1574 60801 475748910 5 Extended
> /dev/sda5 1574 2878 10482381 83 Linux
> /dev/sda6 2879 2891 104391 83 Linux
> /dev/sda7 2892 4196 10482381 83 Linux
> /dev/sda8 4197 4209 104391 83 Linux
> /dev/sda9 4210 5514 10482381 83 Linux
> /dev/sda10 5515 5527 104391 83 Linux
> /dev/sda11 5528 60801 443988373+ 83 Linux
>
I get:
]# fdisk -l
[snip]
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 4089 32844861 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 4090 4982 7173022+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 4090 4982 7172991 83 Linux
[snip]
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2 4998 40138402+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 * 2 11 80293+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 12 164 1228941 82 Linux swap /
Solaris
/dev/sdb7 165 1184 8193118+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb8 1185 3723 20394486 83 Linux
/dev/sdb9 3724 4998 10241406 b W95 FAT32
I see on sda my linux backup partition /dev/sda5 is part of the
extended /dev/sda2 and what you say about starting the linux partition
on the fifth partition is true. However, and I never noticed it before,
sdb1 is a W95 Ext'd partition. sdb is my "linux" drive with only sdb9
formatted as FAT32. sdb9 is my backup partition for WindowsXP on sda.
I don't (remember) know how it got there; but it has been set up that
way for a while. I am always screwing around so it doesn't surprise me.
1. What effect could that have had on running my Linux system, if
any?
2. What effect might that have had on grub, if any?
3. What is the best way of fixing it? Doing a completely fresh
installation (including repartitioning and formatting) of Fedora
9 after backing up sdb9? All the other partitions are backed up
to sda5.
I would be particularly interested in answers to the first 2 questions.
I don't expect any problems accomplishing point 3.
--
Regards Bill