FDISK(8) BSD System Manager's Manual FDISK(8)NAMEfdisk — PC slice table (MBR) maintenance program
SYNOPSISfdisk [-BCIaistu] [-b bootcode] [-p diskimage] [-1234] [disk]
fdisk-f configfile [-itv] [disk]
PROLOGUE
In order for the BIOS to boot the kernel, certain conventions must be
adhered to. Sector 0 of the disk must contain an MBR, which contain boot
code, a slice table, and a magic number. BIOS slices can be used to
break the disk up into several pieces. DragonFly slices are called par‐
titions under DOS (“partition” has another meaning under DragonFly, see
disklabel(8)). DragonFly supports 30 MBR slices, s1-s4 will be DOS pri‐
mary partitions, s5-s30 will be DOS partitions in extended DOS parti‐
tions. The BIOS brings in sector 0 and verifies the magic number. The
sector 0 boot code then searches the slice table to determine which slice
is marked active. This boot code then brings in the bootstrap from the
active slice and, if marked bootable, runs it. Under DOS, you can have
one or more slices with one active. The DOS fdisk program can be used to
divide space on the disk into slices and set one active.
DESCRIPTION
The DragonFly program, fdisk, serves a similar purpose to the DOS pro‐
gram. The first form is used to display slice information or to interac‐
tively edit the slice table. The second is used to write a slice table
using a configfile and is designed to be used by other scripts/programs.
Options are:
-a Change the active slice only. Ignored if -f is given.
-b bootcode
Get the boot code from the file bootcode. Default is /boot/mbr.
-p diskimage
The disk image is specified as a normal file instead of as a
device, which is useful when building emulated disks for vmware,
bochs, etc.
-B Reinitialize the boot code contained in sector 0 of the disk.
Ignored if -f is given.
-C Set CHS fields to wrapped values. Normally the CHS fields for a
slice are set to all 1's if they would otherwise wrap. This typ‐
ically causes BIOSes to properly detect that the disk should be
put in Large mode. This option may be needed on very old PCs.
-f configfile
Set slice values using the file configfile. The configfile
always modifies existing slices, unless -i is also given, in
which case all existing slices are deleted (marked as “unused”)
before the configfile is read. The configfile can be ‘-’, in
which case stdin is read. See CONFIGURATION FILE, below, for
file syntax.
WARNING: when -f is used, you are not asked if you really want to
write the slices table (as you are in the interactive mode). Use
with caution!
-i Initialize sector 0 of the disk. This implies -u, unless -f is
given.
-I Initialize the contents of sector 0 for one DragonFly slice cov‐
ering the entire disk.
-s Print a summary of all slices on the disk and exit. All other
options will be ignored.
-t Test mode; do not write slice values. Generally used with the -f
option to see what would be written to the slice table. Implies
-v.
-u Is used for updating (editing) sector 0 of the disk. Ignored if
-f is given.
-v Be verbose. When -f is used, fdisk prints out the slice table
that is written to the disk.
-1234 Operate on a single fdisk entry only. Ignored if -f is given.
The final disk name can be provided as a ‘bare’ disk name only, e.g. da0,
or as a fully qualified device node under /dev. If omitted, the disks
ad0, da0 and vkd0 are searched in that order, until one is found to
respond.
When called without options, fdisk prints the sector 0 slice table. An
example follows:
******* Working on device /dev/ad0 *******
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=769 heads=15 sectors/track=33 (495 blks/cyl)
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=769 heads=15 sectors/track=33 (495 blks/cyl)
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
sysid 165,(DragonFly/FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
start 495, size 380160 (185 Meg), flag 0
beg: cyl 1/ sector 1/ head 0;
end: cyl 768/ sector 33/ head 14
The data for partition 2 is:
sysid 164,(unknown)
start 378180, size 2475 (1 Meg), flag 0
beg: cyl 764/ sector 1/ head 0;
end: cyl 768/ sector 33/ head 14
The data for partition 3 is:
<UNUSED>
The data for partition 4 is:
sysid 99,(ISC UNIX, other System V/386, GNU HURD or Mach)
start 380656, size 224234 (109 Meg), flag 80
beg: cyl 769/ sector 2/ head 0;
end: cyl 197/ sector 33/ head 14
The disk is divided into three slices that happen to fill the disk. The
second slice overlaps the end of the first. (Used for debugging pur‐
poses.)
sysid is used to label the slice. DragonFly reserves the
magic number 165 decimal (A5 in hex).
start and size fields provide the start address and size of a
slice in sectors.
flag 80 specifies that this is the active slice.
cyl, sector and head fields are used to specify the beginning and end
addresses of the slice.
Note: these numbers are calculated using BIOS's under‐
standing of the disk geometry and saved in the
bootblock.
The -i and -u flags are used to indicate that the slice data is to be
updated. Unless the -f option is also given, fdisk will enter a conver‐
sational mode. In this mode, no changes will be written to disk unless
you explicitly tell fdisk to.
Fdisk will display each slice and ask whether you want to edit it. If
you say yes, fdisk will step through each field, show you the old value,
and ask you for a new one. When you are done with the slice, fdisk will
display it and ask you whether it is correct. Fdisk will then proceed to
the next entry.
Getting the cyl, sector, and head fields correct is tricky, so by
default, they will be calculated for you; you can specify them if you
choose to though.
After all the slices are processed, you are given the option to change
the active slice. Finally, when all the new data for sector 0 has been
accumulated, you are asked to confirm whether you really want to rewrite
it.
The difference between the -u and -i flags is that the -u flag just edits
(updates) the fields as they appear on the disk, while the -i flag is
used to “initialize” sector 0; it will set up the last BIOS slice to use
the whole disk for DragonFly and make it active.
NOTES
The automatic calculation of starting cylinder etc. uses a set of figures
that represent what the BIOS thinks the geometry of the drive is. These
figures are taken from the in-core disklabel by default, but fdisk ini‐
tially gives you an opportunity to change them. This allows you to cre‐
ate a bootblock that can work with drives that use geometry translation
under the BIOS.
If you hand craft your disk layout, please make sure that the DragonFly
slice starts on a cylinder boundary. A number of decisions made later
may assume this. (This might not be necessary later.)
Editing an existing slice will most likely result in the loss of all data
in that slice.
You should run fdisk interactively once or twice to see how it works.
This is completely safe as long as you answer the last question in the
negative. There are subtleties that fdisk detects that are not fully
explained in this manual page.
CONFIGURATION FILE
When the -f option is given, a disk's slice table can be written using
values from a configfile. The syntax of this file is very simple; each
line is either a comment or a specification, as follows:
# comment ...
Lines beginning with a ‘#’ are comments and are ignored.
g spec1 spec2 spec3
Set the BIOS geometry used in slice calculations. There must be
three values specified, with a letter preceding each number:
cnum Set the number of cylinders to num.
hnum Set the number of heads to num.
snum Set the number of sectors/track to num.
These specs can occur in any order, as the leading letter deter‐
mines which value is which; however, all three must be specified.
This line must occur before any lines that specify slice informa‐
tion.
It is an error if the following is not true:
1 ≤ number of cylinders
1 ≤ number of heads ≤ 256
1 ≤ number of sectors/track < 64
The number of cylinders should be less than or equal to 1024, but
this is not enforced, although a warning will be printed. Note
that a bootable DragonFly slice (the “/” file system) must lie
completely within the first 1024 cylinders, if “packet” mode
isn't used, see boot0cfg(8); if this is not true, booting may
fail. Non-bootable slices do not have this restriction.
Example (all of these are equivalent), for a disk with 1019
cylinders, 39 heads, and 63 sectors:
g c1019 h39 s63
g h39 c1019 s63
g s63 h39 c1019
p slice type start length
Set the slice given by slice (1-4) to type type, starting at sec‐
tor start for length sectors.
Only those slices explicitly mentioned by these lines are modi‐
fied; any slice not referenced by a p line will not be modified.
However, if an invalid slice table is present, or the -i option
is specified, all existing slice entries will be cleared (marked
as unused), and these p lines will have to be used to explicitly
set slice information. If multiple slices need to be set, multi‐
ple p lines must be specified; one for each slice.
These slice lines must occur after any geometry specification
lines, if one is present.
The type is 165 for DragonFly slices. Specifying a slice type of
zero is the same as clearing the slice and marking it as unused;
however, dummy values (such as ‘0’) must still be specified for
start and length.
Note: the start offset will be rounded upwards to a head boundary
if necessary, and the end offset will be rounded downwards to a
cylinder boundary if necessary.
Example: to clear slice 4 and mark it as unused:
p 4 0 0 0
Example: to set slice 1 to a DragonFly slice, starting at sector
1 for 2503871 sectors (note: these numbers will be rounded
upwards and downwards to correspond to head and cylinder bound‐
aries):
p 1 165 1 2503871
a slice
Make slice the active slice. Can occur anywhere in the config
file, but only one must be present. If no a line is present, all
slices of the disk are made inactive.
Example: to make slice 1 the active slice:
a 1
FILES
/boot/mbr The default boot code
COMPATIBILITY
Due to the use of 32 bit to store the number of sectors in the MBR, fdisk
can at most use 2^32 - 1 sectors. For the prevalent sector size of 512B
this means a maximum of 2TB. Larger disks should be partitioned using
gpt(8).
The MBR that fdisk manipulates, is used by many different OSs, but the
exact requirements seems to differ, it can be a hassle to get multiple
OSs to recognize the same MBR. Some OSs will require that slices are
located at cylinder boundaries.
SEE ALSOboot0cfg(8), disklabel(8), gpt(8), newfs(8)BUGS
Only slices s1-s4 (primary DOS partitions) can be changed by fdisk,
s5-s30 (slices in extended DOS partitions) can't be changed by fdisk.
The default boot code will not necessarily handle all slice types cor‐
rectly, in particular those introduced since MS-DOS 6.x.
The entire program should be made more user-friendly.
Most users new to DragonFly do not understand the difference between
slice and partition causing difficulty to adjust.
You cannot use this command to completely dedicate a disk to DragonFly.
The disklabel(8) command must be used for this.
BSD September 1, 2008 BSD
