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SubjectRe: (un)corrupted ext2 partitions
   Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 22:57:44 +0000 (GMT)
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.

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.

This is what I was referring to; note that if you lose one of the
extended partitions, being able to find the rest of extended partitions
after that one becomes.... interesting.

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.

I'm not aware of any fdisk which creates extended partitions in this
way; I didn't even realize that MSDOS and Win9x would recognize it. The
thing which would make me nervous is what would happen if some fdisk
program which was expecting the standard way of handling extended
partitions tried to modify an extended partition table that was set up
in this way.

- Ted


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