[CS-FSLUG] Disk partitioning, difference between logical and primary partitions?

[Frank Bax]

At 01:06 PM 7/25/04, N. Thompson wrote:
>I've always wondered what the difference between logical and primary
>partitions were, I've always used primary when partitioning but using that I
>can only fit so many partitions onto a disk before its full.
>
>I was wondering what the difference between logical and primary partitions
>was, I think I remember seeing primary partitions nested in logical once
>before so I think logical partitions are for increasing a drive's capacity to
>store partitions. Am I correct?

Linux people have written how-to's for almost everything:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/
http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-13.html

MBR (Master Boot Record) only holds info on 4 partitions - and are the only 
ones available to BIOS for hardware bootup.  These are called primary 
partitions.  One of them can be designated an extended partition - if used, 
further data is stored on disk as a linked list of logical partitions.