Partitioning question

[Tom Hines]

On 8/4/06, Gary W. Swearingen <garys at opusnet.com> wrote:
> Alexander Skwar <listen at alexander.skwar.name> writes:
>
> > · Gary W. Swearingen <garys at opusnet.com>:
> >
> >> Ouattara Oumar Aziz <wattazoum at gmail.com> writes:
> >>
> >>> Here is the actual state of your disk referring to the block mapping
> >>>
> >>> <--------------/dev/hda1------------------------------------->
> >>> <--/dev/hda5--><---/dev/hda6---><--/dev/hda7--><--/dev/hda8-->
> >>
> >> Even that is something of a fiction, it seems.  According to
> >> http://www.ata-atapi.com/hiwtab.htm the partition tables implement a
> >> concept for which the partitions > 4 are best thought of as similar to
> >> the primary extended partition
> >
> > Hm - "primary extended parition"... Bad wording: There's no such
> > thing. hda1 is a primary partition of type 0x05, which means that
> > the partition type is "Extended".
>
> All you've told me there is that you believe the fiction and are
> willing to ignore the factual details.  You haven't begun to address
> the web site's claim and diagram (Ex 1) which shows multiple extended
> partitions, only one of which is the "primary extended partition".
> (Actually, Linux permits (or once permitted) up to 4 primary extended
> partitions, as well.)  It seems that you didn't even bother to look at
> the web page or other docs on the actual low-level layout of
> partitions on a disk.  I'd welcome a reference to something which
> convincingly contradicts that page, but please don't bother me with
> yet another recitation of Partitioning For Dummies.

There is no such thing as a "primary extended" partition.  There is
primary, and there is extended.  You are talking about nested extended
partitions, and what you refer to as "primary extended" is the first,
or outer extended partition.  Don't use the term "primary" as "first",
when it in fact means something entirely different in this context.

And mind your manners.