Using extended partitions.. ?

[Ian Smith]

On Fri, 28 Jul 2006 freebsd-questions-request at freebsd.org wrote:

 > I've wanted to try  this for a  long time,  but  I believed  its  not
 > possible,  but  never  asked  anyone so....
 > 
 > Is  it possible to have multiple freebsd slices (partitions)  on a
 > single disk ?  For  example, I  already got a  fbsd slice  with
 > partitions in it,  now  I  want to  add  another and  use that  space,
 > after deleting  a windoze partition.

Yes, with one caveat, below ..

 > What about using  an  extended  logical  partition  as  a freebsd  slice?

Nope.  Well, you can access them (eg as MSDOS or HPFS), but you cannot
install to them, and I don't think they can be UFS at all. Best delete
the 'logical drives' within and make a new primary slice.

 > I  am   quite comfortable  with  linus  fdisk, but  the  fbsd one
 > feels like the plauge to me.  Is  the  linux  port of fdisk a  better
 > choice?

I don't think that would work, or at least be useful.

 > I run all  my linux partitions  from within  ext-logical ones (all
 > but root) and  I want to   clear them and reuse them for freebsd.

Clear that space and make a FreeBSD slice; then allocate one or more
partitions in the new primary slice (aka DOS partition, confusing eh?)

One thing to watch out for (speaking from a rather nasty experience); if
the new slice is _before_ your installed FreeBSD slice, and you're using
sysinstall to fdisk/label the new partition, sysinstall might fancy that
the new slice is where you want to install FreeBSD, and start doing so. 

I once freed a logical partition containing some HPFS (OS/2) 'drives'
and even though I'd used 'W' and ESC to quit out of sysinstall, it began
a fresh installation in the (now first) FreeBSD slice.  Took some doing
to clean up that mess.  If the new slice is after your FreeBSD install
(or on another drive), you should have no worries even using sysinstall.

Cheers, Ian