[mdlug] More new hard drive details

[Jeff Hanson]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 1:15 AM, Jeff Hanson <jhansonxi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Following the old MS-DOS partition structure you have a limit of four
> primary partitions or three primary and one extended.  Only DOS and
> Windows (NT-XP, and maybe Vista) require a primary partition and the
> start of the partition they are located on must before the 8GB (else
> they won't boot).  Linux will run from anything anywhere.

I should clarify this.  You need a primary partition regardless with
the MS-DOS structure (aka. the MBR system).  The structure is part of
the IBM PC legacy partly perpetuated through the BIOS.  There are
others like the BSD "disklabel".

DOS and Windows require installation (or at least the boot.ini and
related loader files) to an active primary partition that begins
somewhere below 8GB else their boot loader can't find them.  IIRC,
they can be located beyond that barrier if you use a different boot
loader (like Grub) but you have to fight with their installers by
providing a FAT or NTFS volume located below 8GB for the boot files to
be stored and then move them later.