Re: [Cooker] ldm_validate_partition_table - what's that?

[Ron Stodden]

Felix Miata wrote:

Pixel wrote:

Pascal Cavy wrote:

All logical partitions must be in cylinder order in the various MBRs along the extended chain
for Windows.     Partition Magic does this.

"must be" is truly wrong. There's no such things as a specification
for this.

Not a specification, a tradition. DOS & DOS-heritage partitioning tools
typically fail if they find the logical chain order doesn't match the
physical placement order.

windows tools do create non-ordered logical-partitions linked list

I've yet to see one.

On the other hand, Linux utilities create MBR entries in order of partition
creation time.

NAICT, they, as well as most others, create MBR table entries in order
of availability (FIFO). If previously created were primaries A, B & C,
using table positions 1, 2, & 3, after which B was deleted, most
partitioning tools will reuse table postition 2 when primary partition D
is later created even though physically placed beyond C.

Aha!   A good example,

This is true for fdisk and cfdisk, to my knowledge.   Windows cannot handle
this.

wrong. AFAIK windows doesn't (didn't?) like many things, esp. when
there is more than one primary partition (why??)

M$ programmers with blinders that don't foresee *and* accomodate the
possibility of more than one OS installed per device or system.

Accordingly, Linux-created partitions cannot be guaranteed to be acceptable to
Windows.

Usually this happens only when a partitioning tool creates a partition
that does not start on a cylinder boundary. I'm not aware of any
non-Linux tools capable of such behavior.

you mean FAT partitions created under linux?

Regardless whether any format at all.

AFAIK there's a pb regarding the boot code which is not written
correctly when windows is installing on a linux-pre-formatted
partition.

The best solution I know is never to create partitions except with Partition Magic (which
does not support ext3, Reiserfs, etc.) or you must dedicate a hard drive to Windows
partitions only if you need to double-boot with Windows.   You could also choose to
dedicate an entire machine to Windows only.

The best solution short of separate disks is to use a tool that
understands multiple formats. The more formats the better. Generally
this means just about any tool that is *not* distributed with any OS,
and includes Partition Magic among many others. Understanding formats is
independent of partitioning, and really just a convenience to the user
of the partitioning tool. A partition can be created without any real
format, having the "format" merely designated in the table but not in
the partition's data area. Once in the table, any smart formatter can
change the table entry to match whatever format is actually applied to
the partition's data area.

A good point.   And strategy.    Only ever create partitions with PM.
If the file system you want in that partition is not one in PM's repertoire,
just use the correct one of Linux's many mkfs commands on that partition.

Yes, you can also use cfdisk etc very carefully, making sure that all
partitions are created and exist in start cylinder order.

wow, i wonder why you write "very carefully" since it's the default
behaviour, unless you mess around quite a lot with your partitions.

Maybe by carefully he means avoiding Linux fdisk, which throws out table
entries beyond hdx16. ;-)/

No, I meant carefully watching the start cylinders to maintain sequence.
To insert a partition between two others (copy off, then) delete all the partitions above that point,
then create the new, then recreate (or copy back) the deleted ones with creation order == start
cylinder order.

as for me, i think diskdrake is powerful enough

As pertains to its use during installation, I certainly don't. It needs
to be smart enough to create HPFS fstab entries when type 07h partitions
are in fact formatted HPFS, rather than useless NTFS fstab entries.

There is no partition copy, such as is needed above. The copy can be hardware oriented,
dd-like, ie not aware of which file system is being copied other than knowing the block (cluster)
size.

--
Ron. [Melbourne, Australia]
20030106 updates now available for Fastest Mandrake downloader (English-only) from:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/ronst/