Introduction to Partitions / Comparison Windows-Linux

[TheButcher]

I wrote this tutorial, because i saw that many poeple, trying gentoo for their first time, get stuck at editing their fstab or grub/lilo-config. Any comments and feedback is appreciated.

I assume, that u are an ordinary windows user, so i'd like to explain you fs-basics and a bit device/partition-handling under linux.

1. How are Partitions organized on the harddisk?
Basically, there are 3 different types of partitions.

a) Primary Partitions:
This is the plain old "data-partition" you just create a primary partition and thats it. You can now write data into the partition (format, write, read, ...).

b) Extended Partitions:
As harddisks got bigger, people realized, that the maximum number of 4 Primary Partitions isn't enough (This is due to the limited size of the MBR - the Master Boot Record, which contains the bootloader and the Partitiontable... and is only 512 Byte in size). People didn't want to change the layout of the MBR, so a workaround was needed.

If you create an extended partition, you can't write data to it (data means FILES here). Instead, you can create [see c)]

c) Logical Volumes:
At the beginning of an Extended Partition, you've got something similar to the MBR. The first sector of the Extended Partition contains data, which points to the first Logical Volume. Each logical volume points to the next logical volume, resulting in a chain of logical volumes, in which you can store data.

2. How are these 3 types accessible from your OS?
a) Windows:
Windows enumerates your partitions alphabetically, starting with primary partitions. After that, logical volumes are associated to drive letters. Extended partitions are ignored in this process, as you cannot write data to them and therefore are useless for users.

Say our partition table looks like the following:

[w00tie]

W00t! It works! Thanks for the tutorial!

Umm I hate to be a pain..but I can't boot into windows now!! Grub complains about an Error 13, Chainloader +1.

The handbook should have a more detailed handbook about dual boot systems
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Penguin keepers of the world unite!

[pjp]

Moved from Installing Gentoo.
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