Solved How to create more than 8 paritions in FreeBSD operating system?

antoniog120

antoniog120

Hello FreeBSD community,

How do you create more than 8 partitions in the FreeBSD operating system? My understanding in the FreeBSD operating system is 8 partitions which are identified from the letters a to h is the limit. I also understand this by reading the FreeBSD handbook. But I recently started to work with a FreeBSD system that has 15 partitions. If the FreeBSD community can provide me a explanation of how to create more than 8 partitions and the desired number would be 15 partitions it would be appreciated. Look forward to your responses.

Regards,

Antonio Gandara
 
That’s only true for the old MBR style partitioning.
GPT does not have this limitation.
gpart -s gpt /dev/ada0 will create a GPT layout on the first sata disk, where you then can create as many partitions as you like.
You can not convert from MBR to GPT so you have to backup your data, destroy the old MBR layout (this will destroy all data on the disk!) by gpart destroy -F /dev/ada0 and then create the GPT layout with the above command.
gpart(8)
 
To what k.jacker already said, I'll add that the the actual maximun number of partitions can be specified can be specified with the -n switch when setting up a partition sche:
gpart create -s scheme [-n entries] [-f flags] provider
The number must be lower or equal to the highest value supported by the partition table of choice, and higher or equal to the minimum allowed

...from gpart(8)
-n entries
The number of entries in the partition table. Every partitioning scheme has a minimum and maximum number of entries. This option allows tables to be created with a number of entries that is within the limits. Some schemes have a maximum equal to the minimum and some schemes have a maximum large enough to be considered unlimited. By default, partition tables are created with the minimum number of entries.
Click to expand...

For GPT the lowest count of entries allowed is 128, really can't figure out the maximum:D

For MBR, minimum and maximum correspond to 4. However, since each entry can be whether a primary or an extended partition, the number of partitions MBR can actually support is much higher, as I don't know if there's a limit to the count of logocal volumes one can create inside an extended partition
 
k.jacker said:
That’s only true for the old MBR style partitioning.
GPT does not have this limitation.
gpart -s gpt /dev/ada0 will create a GPT layout on the first sata disk, where you then can create as many partitions as you like.
You can not convert from MBR to GPT so you have to backup your data, destroy the old MBR layout (this will destroy all data on the disk!) by gpart destroy -F /dev/ada0 and then create the GPT layout with the above command.
gpart(8)
Click to expand...

Alright I see. MBR partitioning has that limitation but GPT partitioning does not. Is GPT implemented in FreeBSD 8.1?
 
k.jacker said:
Yes. I just took a look at the gptboot(8) manpage that has existet since FreeBSD 7.1.

You should update to my friend, FreeBSD 8.1 has been EOL for years :eek:
Click to expand...

Alright thanks for the reply. This is not my system I am working with a system that I was given. I agree with your statement. My final question would be how do you access the gpart command during the FreeBSD version 8.1 installation?
 
You don't need to do that by hand during the install. FreeBSD 11.1 (or 10.3) will use GPT by default.

(on really old hardware it might possibly default to MBR, I'm unsure about the hardware requirements for using GPT)

But to answer your question: You can use gpart from the installer when you choose to configure the disk layout by hand, then you'll be dropped to a shell.
Not neccessary though, just let the installer do the job.
 
k.jacker said:
You don't need to do that by hand during the install. FreeBSD 11.1 (or 10.3) will use GPT by default.

(on really old hardware it might possibly default to MBR, I'm unsure about the hardware requirements for using GPT)

But to answer your question: You can use gpart from the installer when you choose to configure the disk layout by hand, then you'll be dropped to a shell.
Not neccessary though, just let the installer do the job.
Click to expand...

Like I said I am working with a system I inherited I did not set it up. This system is using FreeBSD 8.1 like I said previously. Once the system is setup with GPT partitions it will be upgraded to a newer version but that's way down in the process. I will be doing most of my work from the FreeBSD 8.1 Fixit repair mode or shell as it's called. I read a couple of wiki articles from the freebsd.org domain and they describe running gpart from fixit so I now have an understanding of how to run the command from the FreeBSD 8.1 installer. Thanks again for your help you have answered all of my questions.
 
I thought you wanted to do a fresh install, my bad.
You can't convert your current disk to GPT. In your case I would just add a disk.

CAREFULL! The commands I showed earlier were examples!

Check device names of your disk(s) with gpart show.
Your primary disk with the FreeBSD 8.1 install might be /dev/ada0 so double-check and don't accidentially erase that one ;)
 
k.jacker said:
I thought you wanted to do a fresh install, my bad.
You can't convert your current disk to GPT. In your case I would just add a disk.

CAREFULL! The commands I showed earlier were examples!

Check device names of your disk(s) with gpart show.
Your primary disk with the FreeBSD 8.1 install might be /dev/ada0 so double-check and don't accidentially erase that one ;)
Click to expand...


This is a project that I am doing. I am actually just discussing here one process in the project that I got stuck on so you are not seeing the entire picture. Like I said earlier this is a fresh install.
 
If you're doing a fresh install you should not use FreeBSD 8.x, get the latest release instead.

Using older versions will get you into major issues. For starters: don't expect to install any 3rd party software on there using the Ports collection because it'll fail. On multiple accounts, not only will you get error messages regarding the use of the obsolete release, the Ports collection is constantly updated to support the current releases.

So there's a very high chance that several software packages will plain out break because of missing libraries and other functionality.

Doing a fresh install of FreeBSD 8.x around this time is a bad idea(tm).
 
Like I said you are not seeing the entire picture. I actually have no further questions to discuss in this thread. Now we are deviating into different topics. Thanks for your help gentlemen.
 
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