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SubjectRe: (un)corrupted ext2 partitions
    From: Riley Williams <rhw@BigFoot.Com>

From what I've read, I gained the impression that there are in fact
TWO ways that the partition tables in an extended partition can be
used, but from Ted's comments above, that appears not to be the case.
Could I ask somebody to straighten me out on this please, and tell me
what I've got wrong...

1. An extended partition starts with its own partition table,
which, like tha master partition table, has four entries.

Yes. Usually, only one or two are used.

2. The way MSDOS uses this partition table is to put the limits
for a partition in the first entry, and then specify the rest
of that extended partition as being ANOTHER extended partition
in the fourth entry, with its own partition table at the
beginning, and to repeat the process until all space is
allocated.

Yes. Which two entries varies, but most common is the first two entries.

3. An alternative way to handle extended partitions, which both
MSDOS and Win9x recognise, although neither creates, is to
use multiple entries in the base partition table for up to
three valid partitions (four if they fill the entire extended
partition) before allocating another extended partition to
deal with the rest of them.

Yes. (I assume your `base partition table' here is the first extended
partition table.) Also OS/2 and Linux recognise this. Linux fdisk and
cfdisk will not create this; sfdisk will, if you ask for it.

I would be interested in information about which versions of which systems
have used this alternative way.

Andries - aeb@cwi.nl

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