>Whats the story with the C partition or partition 2 (depending
> on the flavour of Unix) when the entire disk is used as a raw
> device.
> I know that by convention, the 3rd partition represents the
> whole disk. While this would be useful in quite a few cases,
> when using the disk as a raw device (as with a database) and
> you are trying to squeeze the maximum number of partitions
> out of the disk, 8 would be preferable to 7. Could the 3rd
> partition be treated as normal? Is it just an issue with format
> or is the convention more ingrained than that?
The convention is that partition 'C' or '2' or slice '7' is the
whole disk - always the whole disk. The OS needs the whole disk
to be able to write to disk areas outside the usual filesystem/
partition space. For example, Moto's SysV R3x writes the slice table
(as well as bootstrap, label and other info) on the disk before the
slices begin.
Some OSen allow one to make a file system smaller than the entire
partition, so that, for instance, one could use a 500MB slice as
a 200MB file system and leave 300MB for raw access. Provided any
program accessing the raw area *always* start after the filesystem,
the filesystem would remain healthy.
If you need more than 7 partitions or slices, you *might* need a new
OS. :(
Quote:> Thank you for tolerating this interuption to your normal flame
> reading. I now return you to the normal rubbish.
The pleasure is yours, I'm sure. :)
Fest3er
--
The Microsoft thirty bladed swiss army knife with corkscrew and magnifying lens
[is] inappropriate for all of my word processing needs.
- Stephanie Evans
by