[ILUG] dying hard disc - upgrade questions?

[Brian Foster]

  | Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 23:19:31 +0100
  | From: Liam Bedford <lbedford at lbedford.org>
  | 
  | Brian Foster wrote:
  | >[ ... ]
  | >  + each table within an extended should consist of just one
  | >    logical optionally followed by a pointer to another table
  | >    _within_ the same extended;
  | 
  | which can lead to the unfortunate situation of something
  | breaking on logical partition 1 taking out all the other
  | logical partitions..

 YES.  this is perhaps one of the reasons I didn't grasp
 the basic idea for so long --- as an O/S programmer meself,
 I couldn't believe _anyone_ would be so *stupid* (and there
 is no other way of putting it) to rely on unreliable storage
 for critical data.   yes, Yes, YES, good sysadmin practice
 should be able to work-around this nonsense, but the design
 is unbelievely dumb.

 ( and this is also an example where knowing the _theory_
  may help in design --- in this case, of the strategy for
  fully back-up the system .... )

  | > and
  | >  + not all software (e.g., O/S's) like/tolerate/grok
  | >    anything else; nor can all boot from a logical.
  | >
  | AIUI, pretty much nothing _boots_ from a logical partition.
  |[ ... ]

 maybe, maybe not.  the docs I found were unclear on these
 details; but I _may_ have overstated the possible problem.

 in any case, I took the “safe‟ route of setting aside two
 primary partitions for “other‟ s/w.  so unless “it‟ fscks-up
 on finding hd¿4 is an extended partition, I ought to be able
 to install/boot/whatever what I want (modulo various other
 stupidities like the MBR overwriting you mention below) ...

  | [ ... ] windows overwrites the MBR by default).

 fortunately, this is the one example I don't care a fig
 about:  I do neither use, run, nor own DoS or Windross.¹

cheers!
	-blf-

  ¹  Ok, ok, I “use‟ Windross at work --- but only as a
    (poor!) X-terminak.  all my real work is on Linux.

-- 
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