Name
    mpartition - partition an MSDOS hard disk

Note of warning
    This manpage has been  automatically generated from mtools's texinfo
    documentation, and may not be entirely accurate or complete.  See the
    end of this man page for details.

Description
    The mpartition command is used to create MS-DOS filesystems as parti-
    tions. This is intended to be used on non-Linux systems, i.e. systems
    where fdisk and easy access to Scsi devices are not available. This
    command only works on drives whose partition variable is set.

    mpartition -p drive mpartition -r drive mpartition -I [-B bootSector]
    drive mpartition -a drive mpartition -d drive mpartition -c [-s sec-
    tors] [-h heads] [-t cylinders] [-v [-T type] [-b begin] [-l length]
    [-f]

    Mpartition supports the following operations:

    p   Prints a  command line to recreate the partition for the drive.
    Nothing is printed if the partition for the drive is not
    defined, or an inconsistency has been detected. If verbose (-v)
    is also set, prints the current partition table.

    r   Removes the partition described by drive.

    I   Initializes the partition table, and removes all partitions.

    c   Creates the partition described by drive.

    a   "Activates" the partition, i.e. makes it  bootable.  Only one
    partition can be bootable at a time.

    d   "Desactivates" the partition, i.e. makes it unbootable.

    If no operation is given, the current settings are printed.

    For partition creations, the following options are available:

    s sectors
    The number of sectors per track of the partition (which is also
    the number of sectors per track for the whole drive).

    h heads
    The number of heads of the partition (which is also the number
    of heads for the whole drive). By default, the geometry infor-
    mation (number of sectors and heads) is figured out from neigh-
    bouring partition table entries, or guessed from the size.

    t cylinders
    The number of cylinders of the partition (not the number of
    cylinders of the whole drive.

    b begin
    The starting offset of the partition, expressed in sectors. If
    begin is  not given, mpartition lets the partition begin at the
    start of the disk (partition number 1), or immediately after the
    end of the previous partition.

    l length
    The size  (length) of the partition, expressed in sectors. If
    end is not given, mpartition figures out the size from the num-
    ber of sectors,  heads and cylinders. If these are not given
    either, it gives the partition the biggest possible size, con-
    sidering disk size and start of the next partition.

    The following option is available for all operation which modify the
    partition table:

    f   Usually, before writing back any changes to the partition, mpar-
    tition performs certain consistenct checks, such as checking for
    overlaps and proper alignment of the partitions.  If any of
    these checks fails, the partition table is not changes. The -f
    allows you to override these safeguards.

    The following options are available for all operations:

    v   Together with -p prints the partition table as it is now (no
    change operation), or as it is after it is modified.

    vv   If the verbosity flag is given twice, mpartition will print out
    a hexdump of the partition table when reading it from and  writ-
    ing it to the device.

    The following option is available for partition table initialization:

    B bootSector
    Reads the template master boot record from file bootSector.

See Also
    Mtools' texinfo doc

Viewing the texi doc
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