mpartition - partition an MSDOS hard disk
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Description
The mpartition command is used to create MS-DOS filesys
tems as partitions. This is intended to be used on non-
Linux systems, i.e. systems where fdisk and easy access to
Scsi devices are not available. This command only works
on drives whose partition variable is set.
mpartition -p drive mpartition -r drive mpartition -I [-B
bootSector] drive mpartition -a drive mpartition -d drive
mpartition -c [-s sectors] [-h heads] [-t cylinders] [-v
[-T type] [-b begin] [-l length] [-f]
Mpartition supports the following operations:
p Prints a command line to recreate the partition for
the drive. Nothing is printed if the partition for
the drive is not defined, or an inconsistency has
been detected. If verbose (-v) is also set, prints
the current partition table.
r Removes the partition described by drive.
I Initializes the partition table, and removes all
partitions.
c Creates the partition described by drive.
a "Activates" the partition, i.e. makes it bootable.
Only one partition can be bootable at a time.
d "Desactivates" the partition, i.e. makes it
unbootable.
If no operation is given, the current settings are
printed.
For partition creations, the following options are avail
able:
s sectors
The number of sectors per track of the partition
the whole drive).
h heads
The number of heads of the partition (which is also
the number of heads for the whole drive). By
default, the geometry information (number of sec
tors and heads) is figured out from neighbouring
partition table entries, or guessed from the size.
t cylinders
The number of cylinders of the partition (not the
number of cylinders of the whole drive.
b begin
The starting offset of the partition, expressed in
sectors. If begin is not given, mpartition lets the
partition begin at the start of the disk (partition
number 1), or immediately after the end of the pre
vious partition.
l length
The size (length) of the partition, expressed in
sectors. If end is not given, mpartition figures
out the size from the number of sectors, heads and
cylinders. If these are not given either, it gives
the partition the biggest possible size, consider
ing disk size and start of the next partition.
The following option is available for all operation which
modify the partition table:
f Usually, before writing back any changes to the
partition, mpartition performs certain consistenct
checks, such as checking for overlaps and proper
alignment of the partitions. If any of these
checks fails, the partition table is not changes.
The -f allows you to override these safeguards.
The following options are available for all operations:
v Together with -p prints the partition table as it
is now (no change operation), or as it is after it
is modified.
vv If the verbosity flag is given twice, mpartition
will print out a hexdump of the partition table
when reading it from and writing it to the device.
The following option is available for partition table ini
tialization:
B bootSector
Reads the template master boot record from file
See Also
Mtools' texinfo doc
Viewing the texi doc
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