Partitions, MBR, etc.

[Rick]

Re : Partitions, MBR, etc.

Hello to all,

I want to repartition a 20 GB hard drive.
The goal is to load and experiment with
one or more additional linux distributions,
while preserving data in existing partitions.
Backups are impractical, as only floppy is
available.

Q 1.  Is there a simple way to backup and
restore the MBR, using floppy, to stave off
potential disaster?

fdisk shows the existing layout :

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 2482 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *         1       243   1951866    b  Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda2           244      2481  17976735    f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5           858      2481  13044748+   b  Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda6           244       250     56164+  83  Linux
/dev/hda7           251       267    136521   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda8           268       857   4739143+  83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

So, in brief :
hda1 is unused, is reserved for DOS, but could be converted 
to a linux partition and used for temporary storage.
hda2 contains hda5,6,7,8.
hda6,7,8 contain RH v.7.3 boot, swap, and root, respectively.
hda5 is unused.  This is the space to be repartitioned.

Q 2.  Using fdisk, if hda5 is deleted,
hda6,7,8 are renumbered as hda5,6,7.
If this is written back to the MBR, my guess is that
LILO and RH v.7.3 will no longer work?

Q 3.  Using fdisk, if hda5,6,7,8 are deleted,
and then recreated by specifying start and end cylinders,
the following layout is produced :
   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *         1       243   1951866    b  Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda2           244      2481  17976735    f  Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5           858       867     80325   83  Linux
/dev/hda6           244       250     56196   83  Linux
/dev/hda7           251       267    136521   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda8           268       857   4739143+  83  Linux
/dev/hda9           868       877     80293+  83  Linux
/dev/hda10          878       887     80293+  83  Linux
etc...
The number of blocks reported has changed,
in particular for hda6.
If this is written back to the MBR will it continue to work?

Q 4.  Can hda7 be used as swap for multiple linux distributions,
or does each distribution need a dedicated swap partition?

Q 5.  Should I reserve a bunch of small partitions below the
"1024 cylinder barrier" (like hda9,10), to provide a boot point
for potential future distributions?
How large do they need to be?

Let me know if you foresee any other gotcha's!
Thanks,
Rick

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