On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 12:32:44PM +0800, Stephen Liu wrote: > Hi Masquared, Matthew, Jay and others, > > Thanks for your advice. > > I don't understand how the extended partion coming in. The hard drive > was previously used solely to run RH8.0. I made a clean installation of > RH9 from its CDs using its GUI partition program to create 4 partitions > for; > > /boot > /swap > /root > /home > > no requesting for extended partitiion. After installation the box was > not running very stable something missing on bottom bar, KStart menu, > etc. I continued using it waiting for RH10. Until recently the box was > heavily attacked by Swen/GiFe, the bouncing worms. I built spam filter > on 'thunderbird', the email software, to catch most of them. Until > recently the box went collapsed. > > Now I am prepared to make another clean installation of RH9.0 on this > box but I need to reserve 'home' in particular, the 'Thunderbird' mail > box > > /home/user/.thunderbird/default/zoe216nc.slt/Mail > > I already create its backup as tarball and backup of other data also as > tarball as well. I did not creat 'home' backup because I worry there > are problems. > > I tried to find out the designation of /dev/hde4 and /dev/hde5 but > forget the correct command, whether 'lab /dev/hdeX' or 'label /dev/hdeX > showing that it is home/root/boot/ etc. > > Could you please shed me some light. Thanks > > B.R. > Stephen > > > > ??? ???, 2003-12-05 02:03, Msquared ????????? > > On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 12:50:32AM +0800, Stephen Liu wrote: > > > > > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System > > > /dev/hde1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux > > > /dev/hde2 14 78 522112+ 82 Linux swap > > > /dev/hde3 79 736 5285385 83 Linux > > > /dev/hde4 737 1245 4088542+ f Win95 Ext'd (LBA) > > > /dev/hde5 737 1245 4088511 83 Linux > > > > > > According to my recollection I only created 4 partitions > > > > The primary partition table on the disk can only contain four partitions. > > If you want more than that, you must create one of those partitions as a > > sort of partition container. The partition container is a partition that > > contains more partitions (secondary partitions). > > > > A simple rule of thumb is that if you make more than 3 partitions, the > > additional ones should be secondary partitions. Having four partitions > > under that rule of thumb is an odd case, since obviously 4 partitions fits > > nicely into the four primary partitions. :-) *shrug* One of those > > things... > > > > Something odd: if you create one primary partition and one secondary > > partition, you'll probably end up with hda1 and hda5, since hda4 will be > > the partition used to create the secondary partition container. I don't > > know if partition 4 (hda4) is the only one that can be a secondary > > partition container, or if that's just by convention. > > > > I hope that clears up the mystery for you. > > > > Regards, Msquared... > > ---end quoted text--- I don't know why the extended partition is type Win95 Ext'd (LBA). Same here on my 4 SCSI drives, but it seems to cause no problems. Perhaps someone can explain this (or I should read the rest of this thread), why redhat linux names it's extended partition Win95 Ext'd (LBA)? I understand what he is saying. Perhaps he should use fdisk to create the partition if he just wants 4 partitions. But be warned that with big partitions even though the drive is not full, you can still run out of inodes (especially on ide drives) and the system will crash if you have a lot of small files such as those created by mailman! Tip: When checking disk space always remember to check inode use when dealing with large partitions: df -i Of course it's trial and error - creating partitions and you sometimes end up with wasted disk space. My current system: Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda3 15116868 3409528 10939436 24% / /dev/sda1 295564 5872 274432 3% /boot /dev/sda2 74587868 1175800 69623140 2% /home /dev/sda8 4380004 32828 4124680 1% /home/web none 1032200 0 1032200 0% /dev/shm /dev/sda7 350021 152 331798 1% /tmp /dev/sda5 10080488 479720 9088700 6% /var As you can see, I will probably never use that 300MB /boot and 350MB /tmp! home could have been divided better too, or I could have left a partition open for further expansion. I did leave /home/web on a different partition just in case /var/www gets full then I could move it to /home/web and ln -s /home/web /var/www You may not realize from the partition table above, this is a 4x36 gig scsi w/raid5. The operating system sees this raid device as a huge single disk! Disk /dev/sda: 110.0 GB, 110096547840 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 13385 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 38 305203+ 83 Linux /dev/sda2 39 9472 75778605 83 Linux /dev/sda3 9473 11384 15358140 83 Linux /dev/sda4 11385 13385 16073032+ f Win95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5 11385 12659 10241406 83 Linux /dev/sda6 12660 12786 1020096 82 Linux swap /dev/sda7 12787 12831 361431 83 Linux /dev/sda8 12832 13385 4449973+ 83 Linux As for the type (perhaps it's just a label) of the extended partition showing up as Win95 Ext'd LBA, it seems to have no affect on the system. In other words you don't really have a problem at all. jay -- Shrike-list mailing list Shrike-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/shrike-list
