1mpartition(1) General Commands Manual mpartition(1)
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6 mpartition - partition an MSDOS hard disk
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11 This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo
12 documentation, and may not be entirely accurate or complete. See the
13 end of this man page for details.
14
16 The mpartition command is used to create MS-DOS file systems as parti‐
17 tions. This is intended to be used on non-Linux systems, i.e. systems
18 where fdisk and easy access to SCSI devices are not available. This
19 command only works on drives whose partition variable is set.
20 mpartition -p drive
22 mpartition -r drive
23 mpartition -I [-B bootSector] drive
24 mpartition -a drive
25 mpartition -d drive
26 mpartition -c [-s sectors] [-h heads]
27 [-t cylinders] [-v [-T type] [-b
28 begin] [-l length] [-f]
29 Mpartition supports the following operations:
33 p Prints a command line to recreate the partition for the drive.
35 Nothing is printed if the partition for the drive is not
36 defined, or an inconsistency has been detected. If verbose (-v)
37 is also set, prints the current partition table.
38 r Removes the partition described by drive.
40 I Initializes the partition table, and removes all partitions.
42 c Creates the partition described by drive.
44 a "Activates" the partition, i.e. makes it bootable. Only one
46 partition can be bootable at a time.
47 d "Deactivates" the partition, i.e. makes it unbootable.
49 If no operation is given, the current settings are printed.
51 For partition creations, the following options are available:
53 s sectors
55 The number of sectors per track of the partition (which is also
56 the number of sectors per track for the whole drive).
57 h heads
59 The number of heads of the partition (which is also the number
60 of heads for the whole drive). By default, the geometry infor‐
61 mation (number of sectors and heads) is figured out from neigh‐
62 boring partition table entries, or guessed from the size.
63 t cylinders
65 The number of cylinders of the partition (not the number of
66 cylinders of the whole drive.
67 b begin
69 The starting offset of the partition, expressed in sectors. If
70 begin is not given, mpartition lets the partition begin at the
71 start of the disk (partition number 1), or immediately after the
72 end of the previous partition.
73 l length
75 The size (length) of the partition, expressed in sectors. If
76 end is not given, mpartition figures out the size from the num‐
77 ber of sectors, heads and cylinders. If these are not given
78 either, it gives the partition the biggest possible size, con‐
79 sidering disk size and start of the next partition.
80 The following option is available for all operation which modify the
82 partition table:
83 f Usually, before writing back any changes to the partition, mpar‐
85 tition performs certain consistency checks, such as checking for
86 overlaps and proper alignment of the partitions. If any of
87 these checks fails, the partition table is not changed. The -f
88 allows you to override these safeguards.
89 The following options are available for all operations:
91 v Together with -p prints the partition table as it is now (no
93 change operation), or as it is after it is modified.
94 vv If the verbosity flag is given twice, mpartition will print out
96 a hexdump of the partition table when reading it from and writ‐
97 ing it to the device.
98 The following option is available for partition table initialization:
100 B bootSector
102 Reads the template master boot record from file bootSector.
103
105 Mpartition proceeds as follows to pick a type for the partition:
106 - FAT32 partitions are assigned type 0x0C (``Win95 FAT32, LBA'')
108 - For all others, if the partition fits entirely within the first
110 65536 sectors of the disk, assign 0x01 (``DOS FAT12, CHS'') for
111 FAT12 partition and 0x04 (``DOS FAT16, CHS'') for FAT16 parti‐
112 tions
113 - If not covered by the above, assign 0x06 (``DOS BIG FAT16 CHS'')
115 if partition fits entirely within the first 1024 cylinders (CHS
116 mode)
117 - All remaining cases get 0x0E (``Win95 BIG FAT16, LBA'')
119 If number of fat bits is not known (not specified in drive's defini‐
121 tion), then FAT12 is assumed for all drives with less than 4096 sec‐
122 tors, and FAT16 for those with more than 4096 sectors.
123 This corresponds more or less to the definitions outlined at
125 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_type#List_of_partition_IDs and
126 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/win‐
127 dows-2000-server/cc977219(v=technet.10), with two notable differences:
128 - If fat bits are unknown, the reference documents consider drives
130 with less than 32680 sectors to be FAT12. Mtools uses 4096 sec‐
131 tors as the cutoff point, as older versions of DOS only support
132 FAT12 on disks with less than 4096 sectors (and these older ver‐
133 sions are the ones which would be most likely to use FAT12 in
134 the first place).
135 - The reference documents use a 8GB (wikipedia) or a 4GB (Micro‐
137 soft) cutoff between 0x06 (DOS BIG FAT16 CHS) and 0x0E. Mtools
138 uses 1024 cylinders. This is because any partition beyond 1024
139 cylinders must be LBA and cannot be CHS. 8GB works out to be the
140 biggest capacity which can be represented as CHS (63 sectors,
141 255 heads and 1024 cylinders). 4GB is the capacity limit for
142 windows 2000, so it makes sense that a documentation for windows
143 2000 would specify this as the upper limit for any partition
144 type.
145
147 Mtools' texinfo doc
148
150 This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo
151 documentation. However, this process is only approximative, and some
152 items, such as crossreferences, footnotes and indices are lost in this
153 translation process. Indeed, these items have no appropriate represen‐
154 tation in the manpage format. Moreover, not all information has been
155 translated into the manpage version. Thus I strongly advise you to use
156 the original texinfo doc. See the end of this manpage for instructions
157 how to view the texinfo doc.
158 * To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the fol‐
160 lowing commands:
161 ./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi
163 * To generate a html copy, run:
167 ./configure; make html
169 A premade html can be found at `http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/man‐
171 ual/mtools.html'
172 * To generate an info copy (browsable using emacs' info mode),
174 run:
175 ./configure; make info
177 The texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html. Indeed, in
181 the info version certain examples are difficult to read due to the
182 quoting conventions used in info.
183mtools-4.0.26 28Nov20 mpartition(1)