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+.\" Copyright 1992, 1993 Rickard E. Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
+.\" Copyright 1998 Andries E. Brouwer (aeb@cwi.nl)
+.\" May be distributed under the GNU General Public License
+.TH FDISK 8 "11 June 1998" "Linux 2.0" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
+.SH NAME
+fdisk \- Partition table manipulator for Linux
+.SH SYNOPSIS
+.BI "fdisk [\-u] [" device ]
+.sp
+.BI "fdisk \-l [\-u] [" "device ..." ]
+.sp
+.BI "fdisk \-s " "partition ..."
+.sp
+.BI "fdisk \-v
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+Hard disks can be divided into one or more logical disks called
+.IR partitions .
+This division is described in the
+.I "partition table"
+found in sector 0 of the disk.
+
+In the BSD world one talks about `disk slices' and a `disklabel'.
+
+Linux needs at least one partition, namely for its root file system.
+It can use swap files and/or swap partitions, but the latter are more
+efficient. So, usually one will want a second Linux partition
+dedicated as swap partition.
+On Intel compatible hardware, the BIOS that boots the system
+can often only access the first 1024 cylinders of the disk.
+For this reason people with large disks often create a third partition,
+just a few MB large, typically mounted on
+.IR /boot ,
+to store the kernel image and a few auxiliary files needed at boot time,
+so as to make sure that this stuff is accessible to the BIOS.
+There may be reasons of security, ease of administration and backup,
+or testing, to use more than the minimum number of partitions.
+
+.B fdisk
+(in the first form of invocation)
+is a menu driven program for creation and manipulation of
+partition tables.
+It understands DOS type partition tables and BSD or SUN type disklabels.
+
+The
+.I device
+is usually one of the following:
+.br
+.nf
+.RS
+/dev/hda
+/dev/hdb
+/dev/sda
+/dev/sdb
+.RE
+.fi
+(/dev/hd[a-h] for IDE disks, /dev/sd[a-p] for SCSI disks,
+/dev/ed[a-d] for ESDI disks, /dev/xd[ab] for XT disks).
+A device name refers to the entire disk.
+
+The
+.I partition
+is a
+.I device
+name followed by a partition number.  For example,
+.B /dev/hda1
+is the first partition on the first IDE hard disk in the system.
+IDE disks can have up to 63 partitions, SCSI disks up to 15.
+See also
+.IR /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt .
+
+A BSD/SUN type disklabel can describe 8 partitions,
+the third of which should be a `whole disk' partition.
+Do not start a partition that actually uses its first sector
+(like a swap partition) at cylinder 0, since that will
+destroy the disklabel.
+
+An IRIX/SGI type disklabel can describe 16 partitions,
+the eleventh of which should be an entire `volume' partition,
+while the ninth should be labeled `volume header'.
+The volume header will also cover the partition table, i.e.,
+it starts at block zero and extends by default over five cylinders.
+The remaining space in the volume header may be used by header
+directory entries.  No partitions may overlap with the volume header.
+Also do not change its type and make some file system on it, since
+you will lose the partition table.  Use this type of label only when
+working with Linux on IRIX/SGI machines or IRIX/SGI disks under Linux.
+
+A DOS type partition table can describe an unlimited number
+of partitions. In sector 0 there is room for the description
+of 4 partitions (called `primary'). One of these may be an
+extended partition; this is a box holding logical partitions,
+with descriptors found in a linked list of sectors, each
+preceding the corresponding logical partitions.
+The four primary partitions, present or not, get numbers 1-4.
+Logical partitions start numbering from 5.
+
+In a DOS type partition table the starting offset and the size
+of each partition is stored in two ways: as an absolute number
+of sectors (given in 32 bits) and as a Cylinders/Heads/Sectors
+triple (given in 10+8+6 bits). The former is OK - with 512-byte
+sectors this will work up to 2 TB. The latter has two different
+problems. First of all, these C/H/S fields can be filled only
+when the number of heads and the number of sectors per track
+are known. Secondly, even if we know what these numbers should be,
+the 24 bits that are available do not suffice.
+DOS uses C/H/S only, Windows uses both, Linux never uses C/H/S.
+
+If possible,
+.B fdisk
+will obtain the disk geometry automatically.  This is not
+necessarily the physical disk geometry (indeed, modern disks do not
+really have anything like a physical geometry, certainly not something
+that can be described in simplistic Cylinders/Heads/Sectors form),
+but is the disk geometry that MS-DOS uses for the partition table.
+
+Usually all goes well by default, and there are no problems if
+Linux is the only system on the disk. However, if the disk has
+to be shared with other operating systems, it is often a good idea
+to let an fdisk from another operating system make at least one
+partition. When Linux boots it looks at the partition table, and
+tries to deduce what (fake) geometry is required for good
+cooperation with other systems.
+
+Whenever a partition table is printed out, a consistency check is performed
+on the partition table entries.  This check verifies that the physical and
+logical start and end points are identical, and that the partition starts
+and ends on a cylinder boundary (except for the first partition).
+
+Some versions of MS-DOS create a first partition which does not begin
+on a cylinder boundary, but on sector 2 of the first cylinder.
+Partitions beginning in cylinder 1 cannot begin on a cylinder boundary, but
+this is unlikely to cause difficulty unless you have OS/2 on your machine.
+
+A sync() and a BLKRRPART ioctl() (reread partition table from disk)
+are performed before exiting when the partition table has been updated.
+Long ago it used to be necessary to reboot after the use of fdisk.
+I do not think this is the case anymore - indeed, rebooting too quickly
+might cause loss of not-yet-written data. Note that both the kernel
+and the disk hardware may buffer data.
+
+.SH "DOS 6.x WARNING"
+
+The DOS 6.x FORMAT command looks for some information in the first
+sector of the data area of the partition, and treats this information
+as more reliable than the information in the partition table.  DOS
+FORMAT expects DOS FDISK to clear the first 512 bytes of the data area
+of a partition whenever a size change occurs.  DOS FORMAT will look at
+this extra information even if the /U flag is given -- we consider
+this a bug in DOS FORMAT and DOS FDISK.
+
+The bottom line is that if you use cfdisk or fdisk to change the size of a
+DOS partition table entry, then you must also use
+.B dd
+to zero the first 512 bytes of that partition before using DOS FORMAT to
+format the partition.  For example, if you were using cfdisk to make a DOS
+partition table entry for /dev/hda1, then (after exiting fdisk or cfdisk
+and rebooting Linux so that the partition table information is valid) you
+would use the command "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1 bs=512 count=1" to zero
+the first 512 bytes of the partition.
+
+.B BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL
+if you use the
+.B dd
+command, since a small typo can make all of the data on your disk useless.
+
+For best results, you should always use an OS-specific partition table
+program.  For example, you should make DOS partitions with the DOS FDISK
+program and Linux partitions with the Linux fdisk or Linux cfdisk program.
+
+.SH OPTIONS
+.TP
+.B \-v
+Print version number of
+.B fdisk
+program and exit.
+.TP
+.B \-l
+List the partition tables for
+.BR /dev/hd[a-d] ,
+.BR /dev/sd[a-h] ,
+.BR /dev/ed[a-d] ,
+and then exit.
+.TP
+.B \-u
+When listing partition tables, give sizes in sectors instead
+of cylinders.
+.TP
+.BI "\-s " partition
+The
+.I size
+of the partition (in blocks) is printed on the standard output.
+This value is normally used as an argument to the
+.BR mkfs (8)
+program to specify the size of the partition which will be formatted.
+(Older versions of fdisk would do this only if the partition id is
+greater than 10, in an attempt to refuse DOS partitions;
+this test has been deleted.)
+Note that
+.B "sfdisk -s"
+gives different (namely, correct) answers.
+Reasons for the difference are that the kernel and
+.B fdisk
+need not have the same idea about partition numbering
+(e.g., in case you have BSD slices), and have different
+ideas about the size of an extended partition.
+.SH BUGS
+There are several *fdisk programs around.
+Each has its problems and strengths.
+Try them in the order
+.BR cfdisk ,
+.BR fdisk ,
+.BR sfdisk .
+.PP
+The IRIX/SGI type disklabel is currently not supported by the kernel.
+Moreover, IRIX/SGI header directories are not fully supported yet.
+.PP
+The option `dump partition table to file' is missing.
+.\" .SH AUTHORS
+.\" A. V. Le Blanc (LeBlanc@mcc.ac.uk)
+.\" Bernhard Fastenrath (fasten@informatik.uni-bonn.de)
+.\" Jakub Jelinek (jj@sunsite.mff.cuni.cz)
+.\" Andreas Neuper (ANeuper@GUUG.de)
+.\" and many others.