mpartition
mpartition(1) mpartition(1)
Name
mpartition - partition an MSDOS hard disk
Note of warning
This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools’s texinfo
documentation, and may not be entirely accurate or complete. See the
end of this man page for details.
Description
The mpartition command is used to create MS-DOS filesystems as parti-
tions. This is intended to be used on non-Linux systems, i.e. systems
where fdisk and easy access to Scsi devices are not available. This
command only works on drives whose partition variable is set.
mpartition -p drive
mpartition -r drive
mpartition -I [-B bootSector] drive
mpartition -a drive
mpartition -d drive
mpartition -c [-s sectors] [-h heads]
[-t cylinders] [-v [-T type] [-b
begin] [-l length] [-f]
Mpartition supports the following operations:
p Prints a command line to recreate the partition for the drive.
Nothing is printed if the partition for the drive is not
defined, or an inconsistency has been detected. If verbose
(-v) is also set, prints the current partition table.
r Removes the partition described by drive.
I Initializes the partition table, and removes all partitions.
c Creates the partition described by drive.
a "Activates" the partition, i.e. makes it bootable. Only one
partition can be bootable at a time.
d "Desactivates" the partition, i.e. makes it unbootable.
If no operation is given, the current settings are printed.
For partition creations, the following options are available:
s sectors
The number of sectors per track of the partition (which is also
the number of sectors per track for the whole drive).
h heads
The number of heads of the partition (which is also the number
of heads for the whole drive). By default, the geometry infor-
mation (number of sectors and heads) is figured out from neigh-
bouring partition table entries, or guessed from the size.
t cylinders
The number of cylinders of the partition (not the number of
cylinders of the whole drive.
b begin
The starting offset of the partition, expressed in sectors. If
begin is not given, mpartition lets the partition begin at the
start of the disk (partition number 1), or immediately after
the end of the previous partition.
l length
The size (length) of the partition, expressed in sectors. If
end is not given, mpartition figures out the size from the num-
ber of sectors, heads and cylinders. If these are not given
either, it gives the partition the biggest possible size, con-
sidering disk size and start of the next partition.
The following option is available for all operation which modify the
partition table:
f Usually, before writing back any changes to the partition,
mpartition performs certain consistenct checks, such as check-
ing for overlaps and proper alignment of the partitions. If
any of these checks fails, the partition table is not changes.
The -f allows you to override these safeguards.
The following options are available for all operations:
v Together with -p prints the partition table as it is now (no
change operation), or as it is after it is modified.
vv If the verbosity flag is given twice, mpartition will print out
a hexdump of the partition table when reading it from and writ-
ing it to the device.
The following option is available for partition table initialization:
B bootSector
Reads the template master boot record from file bootSector.
See Also
Mtools’ texinfo doc
Viewing the texi doc
This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools’s texinfo
documentation. However, this process is only approximative, and some
items, such as crossreferences, footnotes and indices are lost in this
translation process. Indeed, these items have no appropriate repre-
sentation in the manpage format. Moreover, not all information has
been translated into the manpage version. Thus I strongly advise you
to use the original texinfo doc. See the end of this manpage for
instructions how to view the texinfo doc.
* To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the fol-
lowing commands:
./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi
* To generate a html copy, run:
./configure; make html
A premade html can be found at: ‘http://mtools.linux.lu’ and
also at: ‘http://www.tux.org/pub/knaff/mtools’
* To generate an info copy (browsable using emacs’ info mode),
run:
./configure; make info
The texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html. Indeed, in
the info version certain examples are difficult to read due to the
quoting conventions used in info.
mtools-3.9.9 03Mar03 mpartition(1)
