minix/man/man8/fdisk.8

.TH FDISK 8
.SH NAME
fdisk \- partition a hard disk [IBM]
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBfdisk\fR [\fB\-h\fIm\fR]\fR [\fB\-s\fIn\fR]\fR [\fIfile\fR]\fR
.br
.de FL
.TP
\\fB\\$1\\fR
\\$2
..
.de EX
.TP 20
\\fB\\$1\\fR
# \\$2
..
.SH OPTIONS
.FL "\fB\-h" "Number of disk heads is \fIm\fR"
.FL "\fB\-s" "Number of sectors per track is \fIn\fR"
.SH EXAMPLES
.EX "fdisk /dev/c0d0" "Examine disk partitions"
.EX "fdisk \-h9 /dev/c0d0" "Examine disk with 9 heads"
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
When \fIfdisk\fR 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 
\s-1MINIX 3\s-1,
DOS or other, as well as active or not.
Using \fIfdisk\fR is self-explanatory.  
However, be aware that
repartitioning a disk will cause information on it to be lost.  
Rebooting the system \fIimmediately\fR 
is mandatory after changing partition sizes and parameters.
\s-1MINIX 3\s-1, 
\&\s-2XENIX\s0, \s-2PC-IX\s0, and \s-2MS-DOS\s0 all have different 
partition numbering schemes.
Thus when using multiple systems on the same disk, be careful.
.PP
Note that
\s-1MINIX 3\s-1,
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
\s-2MS-DOS\s0 is that \s-2MS-DOS\s0 allocates disk space in units of
512-byte sectors, whereas 
\s-1MINIX 3\s-1
uses 1K blocks.
\fIFdisk\fR has a variety of other features that can be seen by typing \fIh\fR.
.PP
.I Fdisk
normally knows the geometry of the device by asking the driver.  You can use
the \fB\-h\fP and \fB\-s\fP options to override the numbers found.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR part (8).