Re: [sleuthkit-users] Extended Partitions [was] RE: Problem adding image

[Silent P. <sp...@si...>]

Quoting: "Brian Carrier"
> Extended are still needed.  The partition table in the first block of
> the disk has four entries in it.  So, you can describe three primary
> partitions and then fill the rest of the disk with an extended
> partition.  The extended partition has another table in it that is used
> to describe partitions in it.  This repeats until all needed partitions
> can be described.

Just been doing some digging on this and have found out that a "pc style"
partition map can have up to four primary partitions in it, but that the
microsoft tools only allow the creation of 1 primary partition. Microsoft can
use and read up to four primary partitions created by other tools.

The notion of an extended partition was apparently a microsoft hack to get
around the limitation of 4 primary partitions, and to allow its own tools to
create more than 1 primary partition. The extended partition consumes the
remainder of the disk space not consumed by the primary partition, and holds its
own partition table to reference the "logical" drives as Brian points out.

I've not discovered any limitation to the number of partitions / logical drives
that an extended partition can have.

Just some partition-trivia.....

Sid.