pdisk.8 revision 1.9
1.Dd September 26, 1997 2.Dt PDISK 8 macppc 3.Os 4.Sh NAME 5.Nm pdisk 6.Nd HFS(DPME) partition maintenance program 7.Sh SYNOPSIS 8.Nm pdisk 9.Op Fl c 10.Op Fl h 11.Op Fl i 12.Op Fl l 13.Op Fl r 14.Op Fl v 15.Ar device 16.Sh DESCRIPTION 17.Nm 18is a menu driven program which partitions disks using the standard Apple 19disk partitioning scheme described in "Inside Macintosh: Devices". 20It does not support the intel/dos partitioning scheme supported by 21.Em fdisk . 22The 23.Ar device 24is usually one of the following: 25.Pp 26.Pa /dev/sd0c 27.Pa /dev/sd1c 28.Pa /dev/sd2c 29.Pa /dev/sd3c 30.Pa /dev/sd4c 31.Pa /dev/sd5c 32.Pa /dev/sd6c 33.Pa /dev/wd0c 34.Pa /dev/wd1c 35.Pa /dev/wd2c 36.Pa /dev/wd3c 37.Pp 38The options are as follows: 39.Bl -tag -width Ds 40.It Fl c 41Causes 42.Nm 43to always ignore the device size listed in the partition table 44and compute the device size by other means. 45.It Fl h 46Prints a rather lame set of help messages for the 47.Nm 48program. 49.It Fl i 50Causes 51.Nm 52to go into an interactive mode similar to the MacOS version of the program. 53.It Fl l 54List the partition tables for the specified 55.Ar devices . 56.It Fl r 57Prevents 58.Nm 59from writing to the device. 60.It Fl v 61Prints version number of the program. 62.El 63.Pp 64An argument which is simply the name of a 65.Ar device 66indicates that 67.Nm 68should edit the partition table of that device. 69.Sh COMMAND MODE 70The list of commands and their explanations are given below. 71.Bl -tag -width "update" 72.It Em h 73command help 74.It Em p 75print the partition table 76.It Em P 77print ordered by base address 78.It Em i 79initialize partition map 80.It Em s 81change size of partition map 82.It Em c 83create new partition (standard 84.Ox 85type) 86.It Em C 87create with type also specified 88.It Em n 89(re)name a partition 90.It Em d 91delete a partition 92.It Em r 93reorder partition entry in map 94.It Em t 95change the type of an existing partition 96.It Em w 97write the partition table 98.It Em q 99quit editing (don't save changes) 100.El 101.Pp 102Commands which take arguments prompt for each argument in turn. 103You can also type any number of the arguments separated by spaces 104and those prompts will be skipped. 105The only exception to typeahead are the confirmation prompts on the 106.Em i 107and 108.Em w 109commands. 110The idea being that if we expect you to confirm the decision we 111shouldn't undermine that by allowing you to be precipitate about it. 112.Pp 113Partitions are always specified by their number, 114which is the index of the partition entry in the partition map. 115Most of the commands will change the index numbers of all partitions 116after the affected partition. 117You are advised to print the table as frequently as necessary. 118.Pp 119Creating more than fifteen partitions is not advised, for 120compatibility reasons. 121.Pp 122The 123.Em c 124(create new partition) command is the only one with complicated arguments. 125The first argument is the base address (in blocks) of the partition. 126Besides a raw number, you can also specify a partition number followed 127by the letter 'p' to indicate that the first block of the new partition should 128be the same as the first block of that existing free space partition. 129The second argument is the length of the partition in blocks. 130This can be a raw number or can be a partition number followed by the 131letter 'p' to use the size of that partition or can be a number followed 132by 'k', 'm', or 'g' to indicate the size in kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes 133respectively. 134(These are powers of 1024, of course, not powers of 1000.) 135The last argument is the name of the partition. 136This can be a single word without quotes, or a string surrounded by 137single or double quotes. 138The type of the created partition is the correct type for OpenBSD. 139.Pp 140The 141.Em C 142command is identical to the 143.Em c 144command, with the addition of a partition type argument after the 145other arguments. 146.Pp 147The 148.Em n 149(name) command allows the name of a partition to be changed. 150Note that the various "Apple_Driver" partitions depend 151on the name field for proper functioning. 152I am not aware of any other partition types with this limitation. 153.Pp 154The 155.Em r 156(reorder) command allows the index number of partitions to be changed. 157The index numbers are constrained to be a contiguous sequence. 158.Pp 159The 160.Em t 161(change type) command allows the type of an existing partition to be changed. 162Examples of valid partition types are: Apple_Free, Apple_HFS, and OpenBSD. 163.Pp 164The 165.Em i 166(initialize) command prompts for the size of the device. 167This was done to get around a bug in the kernel where it reports the wrong 168size for the device. 169.Pp 170The 171.Em w 172(write) command does write the partition map out, 173but there is currently a bug in the interaction between the 174disk and the kernel where 175.Nm disklabel 176.Fl c 177.Ar device 178must be issued to cause the kernel to reinterpret the new label. 179.Sh BUGS 180Some people believe there should really be just one disk partitioning utility. 181.Pp 182.Nm 183should be able to create HFS partitions that work. 184.Pp 185Even more help should be available during user input. 186.Sh SEE ALSO 187.Xr disklabel 8 , 188.Xr fdisk 8 189.Sh AUTHORS 190.An Eryk Vershen Aq eryk@apple.com . 191