Mounting extended dos partition

[Brian Astill]

On Mon, 7 Jul 2003 11:51 pm, Malcolm Kay wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Jul 2003 22:18, Brian Astill wrote:
> > On Mon, 7 Jul 2003 04:08 pm, Kent Stewart wrote:
> > > On Sunday 06 July 2003 10:45 pm, Brian Astill wrote:
> > > > On Mon, 7 Jul 2003 05:21 am, Kent Stewart wrote:
> > > > > > Any ideas on how I mount this logical drive in this
> > > > > > extended partition ?
> > > > >
> > > > > The extended partitions all start at 5 because you can have 4
> > > > > primary partitions.
> > > >
> > > > Typo!  should read "can't" , or "cannot have more than three
> > > > primary partitions"
> > >
> > > Not true. In the handbook in section 2.5.2 you will find the
> > > following
> >
> > Which refers to FREEBSD, not DOS.
> > It is a DOS logical partition within a DOS extended partition the
> > enquirer is trying to mount.
> >
> > Your information is irrelevant inaccurate and confusing in this
> > context.
>
> The number of primary partitions (slices) was maximum four before I
> had even heard of FreeBSD. They correspond to the four slots in the
> partition table in the MBR.
>
> A possible point of confusion is that an extended partition is itself
> a primary partition. It is not the extended partion that appears as
> slice 5 but a "logical" partition contained within the extended
> partition.

Thanks, Malcolm.  That is accurate AND helpful.

However, have you tried to use 4 standard primary partitions in DOS?  In 
my experience, it doesn't work YMMV.

An issue with those limitations is that (I think it is a BIOS 
variablility problem) some systems using Windos can "see" only the 
first primary partition in a Primary-Primary-(Extended/Logical)-Primary 
situation and that it is more sensible to use 
Primary-(Extended/Logical)-Primary or just Primary-(Extended/Logical).

Another issue I have found is that NTFS is easier for WinNT and FBSD to 
share than any other format.  Go figure.

-- 
Regards,
Brian