On Mon, Oct 29, 2001 at 06:42:17PM -0800, Michael Arolan wrote:
> Hi Guys,
> 
> How can I see all the partitions on my hard disk whether mounted by Linux or
> not?  I would really like to see the total hard disk size of my computer and
> their distribution into partitions.  I chose the automatic partitioning
> option while installing my Redhat 7.0 Linux OS but don't know how the disk
> was divided and which partitions are unused, what size they are etc.
> 
> What is an extended Linux partition?  Is this partition available for use by
> Linux?  
> 
> Regards
> 
> Michael   
> 
> 

As root, you can type 'fdisk /dev/hda', then 'p' to print the partition
information. (Of course, if you have more than one disk, feel free to
check 'em all - 'fdisk /dev/hdb', 'fdisk /dev/sda', etc.)

An extended partition is "a box holding logical partitions, with
descriptors found in a linked list of sectors, each preceding the
corresponding logical partitions. The four primary partitions, present
or not, get numbers 1-4.  Logical partitions start numbering from 5."

You might want to use extended/logical partitioning if you have a large
disk and want to split it up into more manageable units, eg, for backup,
or for some other sensible partitioning scheme. Since you only get four
primary paritions, if you need more than four you have to use extended
partitioning. See 'man fdisk' for more details.

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