

FDISK(8)                  Minix Programmer's Manual                   FDISK(8)


NAME
     fdisk - partition a hard disk [IBM]

SYNOPSIS
     fdisk [-hm] [-sn] [file]

OPTIONS

     -h   Number of disk heads is m

     -s   Number of sectors per track is n

EXAMPLES

     fdisk /dev/hd0      # Examine disk partitions

     fdisk -h9 /dev/hd0  # Examine disk with 9 heads

DESCRIPTION

     When fdisk starts up, it reads in the partition table  and  displays  it.
     It then presents a menu to allow the user to modify partitions, store the
     partition table on a file, or load it from a  file.   Partitions  can  be
     marked  as MINIX, DOS or other, as well as active or not.  Using fdisk is
     self-explanatory. However, be aware that repartitioning a disk will cause
     information  on  it  to  be  lost.  Rebooting  the  system immediately is
     mandatory after changing partition sizes and parameters.   MINIX,  XENIX,
     PC-IX,  and  MS-DOS all have different partition numbering schemes.  Thus
     when using multiple systems on the same disk, be careful.

     Note that MINIX, unlike MS-DOS , cannot  access  the  last  sector  in  a
     partition  with  an odd number of sectors.  The reason that odd partition
     sizes do not cause a problem with MS-DOS is that  MS-DOS  allocates  disk
     space  in units of 512-byte sectors, whereas MINIX uses 1K blocks.  Fdisk
     has a variety of other features that can be seen by typing h.

     Fdisk normally knows the geometry of the device  by  asking  the  driver.
     You can use the -h and -s options to override the numbers found.

SEE ALSO
     part(8).











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