Quote:
Originally Posted by
Synchlavier
So when doing the math it would seem that only a total of 8 partitions 4 primary and the rest extended are allowed on a hdd - is that still the case today with modern SATA hdds -
First off, it's got nothing to do with SATA or any other kind of controller. All a disk controller does is give you block #972983 when you ask for block #972983, and who cares what it means.
This is how Microsoft partitions work... Linux supports many different partition schemes, not just these, but most PC distributions use these because they tend to be installed alongside Windows on consumer PC's. That, and most consumer PC disk software expects this kind of partition table and won't be able to handle other kinds.
But you're slightly confused. Each of the 4 base partitions can be a primary partition
or an extended partition, so you couldn't have 4 primary
and one extended. You could have 1 primary ( to boot from ) and 3 extended, each of which can have 4 partitions inside them.