Partitions, Sectors, Cmos, Bios
and such:
CMOS--Meaning:
Abbreviation of complementary metal oxide semiconductor.
Pronounced see-moss, CMOS is a widely used type of semiconductor.
CMOS semiconductors use both NMOS (negative polarity) and PMOS
(positive polarity) circuits. Since only one of the circuit types
is on at any given time, CMOS chips require less power than chips
using just one type of transistor. This makes them particularly
attractive for use in battery-powered devices, such as portable
computers. Personal computers also contain a small amount of
battery-powered CMOS memory to hold the date, time, and system
setup parameters.
BIOS--Meaning:
It's the settings for hard-drive,monitor,software,etc.
You'll have to go to one of the many other sites for a further explanation on all the variables because someone could write a hundred pages on all the settings and not even scratch the surface---anyway, I'm trying to stick to the Hard-Drive.
FDISK only sees only 504MB of the disk! Err do
you have an Enhanced BIOS? If you do have an EBIOS, make sure you have enabled
translation: usually, either 'Large' or 'LBA'. If you see no such options in your BIOS
setup, remember that some types of BIOS offer them only when you tell it to autodetect the
drives. Last but not least, remove all old partitions before trying to create new ones
after changing the translation mode.
FDISK will partition only 2GB, there's nothing wrong; this is a limitation of the DOS FAT
and Win95 VFAT filesystems. You will have to create multiple partitions in order to use
the full drive size. This limitation has been addressed in Microsoft's new FAT32
filesystem, currently only available in the Win95 OEM 2 release. It allows giant
multi-gigabyte partitions.
Want to know about Partitions and Sectors do you:
Partition management is the act of creating, editing, and deleting
partitions, and of using them to claim access to the resources they contain.
Given the need to be able to stop and restart various pieces of
software without losing access to the hardware, it is clear that
locking a partition should not depend on (for example) having the run-control running. It makes no sense to unlock a partition whenever the run-control terminates, only to try to lock it again a few seconds later when the run-control is restarted! Partition management is therefore independent of the software associated to the elements contained in the partition.We have used the term 'locking' to describe the act of claiming a
partition for exclusive use. We should now be more explicit. Only one user may lock a partition at any time. Locking a partition does not depend on the ability to start any of the software associated with that partition. It does guarantee that no other user has a locked partition which overlaps with the hardware elements of the partition the user is locking.Note that partitions must also be locked before they may be edited. It is not acceptable that a partition can be changed by one user when another user has locked it!
Under overlapping partitions mode there are two partitions, each covering the entire machine, in effect at all times. For this reason, you need to change how you issue rmpart and lspart commands.
To remove a partition named mypart1234, type:
xps35% rmpart .interactive.mypart1234
To list current partitions, type:
xps35% lspart -r .compute
Partition Matrix Columns
The partition matrix has four columns that define a partition:
Type=An editable column that displays the type of partition. The acceptable values for this field are:
bsd - a partition for a BSD version 4.2 filesystem.
efs - a partition for an Extent Filesystem.
lvol - a partition that is to be part of a logical volume.
raw - a raw partition that can be used by the kernel for swap space.
A root or user/root disk should have a raw partition in partition 0
for swap space. See the IRIX Admin: System Configuration and Operation
guide for more information on swap space.
rlvol - a raw logical volume partition.
sysv - a partition for a UNIX System V filesystem.
xfs - a partition for an XFS filesystem.
xfslog - a partition for an XFS filesystem log.
xlv - a partition for an XFS logical volume.
Start=The place on the disk at which a partition begins.
Size=The size of the partition.
End=The location of the end of the partition.This field is computed
by xdkm based on the start location and the size of the partition.
Sectors of Sorts:
Sectors are not files but simply small areas on your disk that your /hardware reads in single chunks. Under DOS, sectors are most commonly 512 bytes in length. These sectors are invisible to normal programs but are vital for correct operation of your PC. You can not see system sectors on your diskette in the same way that you can see files. They are simply a special reserved location at the beginning of your diskette.
DOS Boot Sectors
The very first sector on disk or diskette that DOS is aware of is the boot sector. From a DOS perspective, this is the first sector on the disk. Every floppy and hard disk has a boot sector containing executable code. This sector contains an executable program whether the disk is bootable or not. Since this program is executed every time you power on or boot your PC, it is very vulnerable to virus attack. Damage to this sector can make your disk appear to be unreadable. This sector is rewritten whenever you do a "SYS" or a "FORMAT /S" to a disk.
Warning: even a non-bootable floppy can contain a virus in the boot sector. If you leave the floppy in your PC when you power on or boot, you will be infected even though the PC won't successfully boot
from that floppy.
Partition Sector (AKA Master Boot Record or MBR)
On hard (fixed) disk drives, the very first sector is the partition sector (also known as the master boot record or partition table).
Each physical hard disk drive has one of these sectors. A single physical disk can be partitioned into one or more logical disks.
For example, you may have a physical drive partitioned into C: and D: logical disks so that your single physical disk appears (to DOS) to be two logical disks. The single partition sector contains the information that describes both logical disks. If the partition sector is damaged, then DOS may not even recognize that your disk exists. The partition sector also contains a program which is executed every time you power up or boot your PC.
This program executes and reads the DOS boot sector (or other operating system boot sector) which also contains a program. Numerous viruses plant their code in the partition sector.
Drive Letter's Assignment:
OK, You have an IDE hard disk divided into a Primary DOS Partition (C:) and a logical volume (D:). You then go to (Somewhere) and buy a second IDE drive, install it in the machine, and creates another Primary DOS Partition and another logical volume.
After rebooting, the Primary DOS Partition on the new disk has become D: while the old logical volume has changed to the E:
drive. The DOS and OS/2 algorithm assigns letters first to all the Primary Partitions on all the disks. This will, in general, mess
up all the disk letters stored in INI files and other configuration data. To avoid trouble, the second drive should be configured with no Primary Partition. It should only have an Extended Partition with two logical volumes. Then the old drive will continue to have drive letters C: and D: and the new disk will get letters E: and F: as was probably intended. Does this explain it??
