 Take our Quick Survey and enter a drawing for a chance to win a $100 VISA Gift Card.15. Appendix: Using cfdisk to partition your harddisk15.1. Hard disk names SCSI harddisks are named with sdx, where x is a hardisk
letter. The disk with the lowest SCSI ID on the first
controller will become sda, the next lower sdb, an so on.
If you have IDE harddisks, they are called hda, hdb, hdc, and
so on instead, where hda is the master disk on the first
controller, hdb is the slave disk on the first controller, hdc
is the master disk on the second controller, and so on.
15.2. Harddisk partitions GNU/Linux systems often uses a partition scheme inherited from
MS-DOS. With this, a harddisk can have up to four primary
partitions. If you want more, you have to make one of these an
extended partition where you can make several logical
partitions. The partitions are named with the disk they belong
to, and a number. The first primary partition on the first
SCSI disk is therefore sda1, the second primary partition is
sda2, and so on. The first and second logical partition on an
extended partition on the first SCSI disk is sda5 and sda6,
and so on. If this makes absolutely no sense to you at all,
try to read Section 16. 15.3. Starting cfdisk you start cfdisk from the command line with the command
where x is the SCSI hardisk letter, like a, b, c, d, etc. So if I
want to partition the first harddisk on the SCSI controller, I'll
enter the command
15.4. Using cfdisk15.4.1. The user interface After you have started cfdisk you'll get an interface where
the current partition table is listed with the names and
some data about each partition, and some command buttons on
the bottom of the screen. To change between partitions, use
the up and down arrow keys. To change between commands, use
the left and right arrow keys.
15.4.2. Deleting a partition To delete an existing partition, highlight it with the up and down
keys, select the Delete command with the left and right arrow
keys, and press Enter.
15.4.3. Making a new partition To make a new partition, select the New
command with the left and right arrow keys, and press
enter. You'll get the choice between a primary and a logical
partition. If you want a logical partition, the program will
automatically make an extended partition for you. Then you
must choose the size of the partition (in MB). If you can't
enter a value in MB, return to the main screen with the Esc
key, and select MB with the Units
command.
15.4.4. Set the type of a partition To set the type of a partition, for bootable PReP, Linux
swap or Linux ext2, highlight the actual partition, and
select the Type command. You'll get a
list over different types. Press space, and you'll get even
more. Find what type you need, and enter the number at the
prompt.
15.4.5. Make a partition bootable To be able to boot from a primary partition, you need to
make it bootable. Highlight the actual partition and select
the Bootable command.
15.4.6. Write the result to disk and quit When you are content with the layout of the disk, select the
Write command. The partition table will
be written to disk. Remember that this will
destroy all data on partitions you have deleted
or changed. You should therefore be very sure that you want
to do this before actually press the Return key.
To exit the program, select the Quit command.
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