1mpartition(1)               General Commands Manual              mpartition(1)
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Name

6       mpartition - partition an MSDOS hard disk
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Note of warning

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.
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Description

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.
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21       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]
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32       Mpartition supports the following operations:
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34       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.
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39       r      Removes the partition described by drive.
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41       I      Initializes the partition table, and removes all partitions.
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43       c      Creates the partition described by drive.
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45       a      "Activates"  the  partition,  i.e.  makes it bootable.  Only one
46              partition can be bootable at a time.
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48       d      "Deactivates" the partition, i.e. makes it unbootable.
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50       If no operation is given, the current settings are printed.
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52       For partition creations, the following options are available:
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54       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).
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58       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.
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64       t cylinders
65              The number of cylinders of the  partition  (not  the  number  of
66              cylinders of the whole drive.
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68       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.
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74       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.
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81       The following option is available for all operation  which  modify  the
82       partition table:
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84       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 changes.  The  -f
88              allows you to override these safeguards.
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90       The following options are available for all operations:
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92       v      Together  with  -p  prints  the partition table as it is now (no
93              change operation), or as it is after it is modified.
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95       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.
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99       The following option is available for partition table initialization:
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101       B bootSector
102              Reads the template master boot record from file bootSector.
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See Also

105       Mtools' texinfo doc
106

Viewing the texi doc

108       This manpage has been automatically  generated  from  mtools's  texinfo
109       documentation.  However,  this  process is only approximative, and some
110       items, such as crossreferences, footnotes and indices are lost in  this
111       translation process.  Indeed, these items have no appropriate represen‐
112       tation in the manpage format.  Moreover, not all information  has  been
113       translated into the manpage version.  Thus I strongly advise you to use
114       the original texinfo doc.  See the end of this manpage for instructions
115       how to view the texinfo doc.
116
117       *      To  generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the fol‐
118              lowing commands:
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120                     ./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi
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124       *      To generate a html copy,  run:
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126                     ./configure; make html
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128       A premade html can be found at `http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/man‐
129       ual/mtools.html'
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131       *      To  generate  an  info  copy (browsable using emacs' info mode),
132              run:
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134                     ./configure; make info
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136
137
138       The texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html.  Indeed,  in
139       the  info  version  certain  examples  are difficult to read due to the
140       quoting conventions used in info.
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142mtools-4.0.13                       28Feb10                      mpartition(1)