Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:56:18 +0200 | From | Mikael Pettersson <> | Subject | Re: completely hide parts of the partition table from Windows? |
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Andries E. Brouwer writes: > On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 11:22:30PM +0200, Mikael Pettersson wrote: > > > So what I'm looking for is some sub-partition table format with the > > following two properties: > > 1. resides in an msdos partition entry of a type that Windows does > > not inspect (for whatever extended partitions or Apple/BSD/Sun > > stuff that Windows may have been taught to recognize) > > 2. the locations and sizes of the sub-partitions are NOT limited by > > the parent msdos partition entry > > The reason I added type 85 = LINUX_EXTENDED_PARTITION > was precisely your concern: it should be something > that DOS/Windows doesnt know about. > > > I've looked at the code in fs/partitions/msdos.c, and it seems that > > most of the extended/BSD/Sun formats don't give me property #2 above. > > The standard description of extended partitions says that the size field > of the parent extended partition descriptor is irrelevant, only the > starting sector matters. > > If you look at the parse_extended() code in msdos.c you'll see > that it does not use its parameter first_size. > (Except in a certain case that you will not be in.)
Right. I misread the "process the data partitions" part to imply that the limits were enforced for all four entries, not just the last two usually-junk entries. Thanks for clarifiying that.
> Make a table that has a Linux extended partition (type 85) > that is short enough not to cause Windows to worry. Have logical > partitions inside of any size and location you desire.
I have created extended partitions with non-default type (though not 85). I'll see if I can convince fdisk or parted to create one with entries exceeding the parent's limits.
Thanks,
/Mikael
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