Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 3 - FOR X86-ITANIUMTM-AMD64 AND INTEL EXTENDED MEMORY 64 TECHNOLO, Руководство по установке

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Appendix D. An Introduction to Disk Partitions 89
Note
The following information is specific to x86-based computers only.
As a convenience to our customers, we provide the
parted
utility. This is a freely available program
that can resize partitions.
If you decide to repartition your hard drive with
parted
, it is important that you be familiar with
disk storage and that you perform a backup of your computer data. You should make two copies of
all the important data on your computer. These copies should be to removable media (such as tape,
CD-ROM, or diskettes), and you should make sure they are readable before proceeding.
Should you decide to use
parted
, be aware that after
parted
runs you are left with two partitions:
the one you resized, and the one
parted
created out of the newly freed space. If your goal is to use
that space to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you should delete the newly created partition, either by
using the partitioning utility under your current operating system or while setting up partitions during
installation.
D.1.5. Partition Naming Scheme
Linux refers to disk partitions using a combination of letters and numbers which may be confusing,
particularly if you are used to the "C drive" way of referring to hard disks and their partitions. In the
DOS/Windows world, partitions are named using the following method:
•
Each partition’s type is checked to determine if it can be read by DOS/Windows.
•
If the partition’s type is compatible, it is assigned a "drive letter." The drive letters start with a "C"
and move on to the following letters, depending on the number of partitions to be labeled.
•
The drive letter can then be used to refer to that partition as well as the file system contained on that
partition.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses a naming scheme that is more flexible and conveys more information
than the approach used by other operating systems. The naming scheme is file-based, with file names
in the form of
/dev/ xxyN
.
Here is how to decipher the partition naming scheme:
/dev/
This is the name of the directory in which all device files reside. Since partitions reside on hard
disks, and hard disks are devices, the files representing all possible partitions reside in
/dev/
.
xx
The first two letters of the partition name indicate the type of device on which the partition
resides, usually either
hd
(for IDE disks) or
sd
(for SCSI disks).
y
This letter indicates which device the partition is on. For example,
/dev/hda
(the first IDE hard
disk) or
/dev/sdb
(the second SCSI disk).