Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!metro!dmssyd.syd.dms.CSIRO.AU!ditsydh.syd.dit.CSIRO.AU!evans From: evans@syd.dit.CSIRO.AU (Bruce.Evans) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: (PC/AT) Minix hard disk partition ???'s Message-ID: <1991Apr29.164329.1223@syd.dit.CSIRO.AU> Date: 29 Apr 91 16:43:29 GMT References: <1991Apr18.134014.46258@vaxb.acs.unt.edu> <1991Apr24.175619.2371@Arco.COM> Organization: CSIRO Division of Info Tech, Sydney, Australia Lines: 32 In article <1991Apr24.175619.2371@Arco.COM> dprrhb@inetg1.ARCO.COM (Reginald H. Beardsley) writes: > >Coherent from Mark Williams puts a new boot sector with an 8 slot >table on your drive (without any warning I might add) so it really isn't >likely to be an OS issue. However, you only have 512 bytes to hold your >code for the loader so it's tight as the larger table comes out of the 512 >bytes. This is not the way to do it. I know of 3 things that want the area just before the partition table: WD autoconfigure (see the Minix-PC xt_wini.c), Speedstor (see sources for Gordon Ross' bootstrap program), and the shoelace bootstrap program (it barely fits in 512 bytes). >Actually, as long as you are careful they won't get stepped on, but >you would need to modify fdisk to use the other slots in the table. >Otherwise you'ld have slots but no way to set them. BTW fdisk for DOS >or some of the shareware jobs would very likely "help you out" by >stepping on the other sectors. Minix fdisk won't. To use Minix fdisk :-), just change NR_PARTITIONS and PART_TABLE_OFF in and recompile. Also recompile the hard disk driver in the kernel to use the new values. This is not the way to do it either! It will not be recognized by other fdisks and the extra partitions will probably be clobbered. Minix has no business using more than one (1) slot in the main partition table. It should use a secondary table in its first partition. E.g., there is room for a table with about 24 entries in the super block. The main table entry would cover all the secondary partitions. -- Bruce Evans evans@syd.dit.csiro.au