Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!botter!ast From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: Hard disk partitions? Message-ID: <1784@botter.cs.vu.nl> Date: 13 Dec 87 12:13:15 GMT References: <5500001@ucf-cs.ucf.edu> Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam Lines: 21 In article <5500001@ucf-cs.ucf.edu> tony@ucf-cs.ucf.edu writes: >If partition 1 is set up for DOS and 2 for Minix, with #2 mounted under >/usr, Minix crashes unpredictably. One thing to remember is that the partition size for partition 1 is one smaller than for partition 2. Another possibility is that the MINIX fdisk and the DOS fdisk don't agree on the meaning of the partition table. If everyone would create their partitions from lowest cylinder to highest there would be no ambiguity. However, if the order in the partition table is different from the cylinder order, there are at least three interpretations. 1. Table slot 1 is partition 1 2. Innermost cylinder is partition 1 3. Outermost cylinder is partition 1 I believe that the combination of MINIX, DOS, XENIX and Microport together exhaust the entire list of possibilities. I don'know if this is related to your problem (which I otherwise can't understand), but it is worth keeping in mind. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)