Re: partitioning and use thereof

Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 10/6/21 8:19 PM, Robert Baer wrote:
>> OK, the way HDs have been set up is extremely wasteful, one giant 
>> track and sector.
> 
> Please define what you mean by "one giant track and sector".  *ALL* of 
> the hard drives that I've used for the past 30 years, and I do mean 
> /all/, have had many tracks, with each track having many sectors therein.
* The partition sector is the worst.
   ONE sector is actually used, and (to exaggerate) ten thousands of 
others get to be unused and unobtanium merely because they are on the 
same cylinder.

> 
>> All else there off to the sunset forever.
> 
> And yet we have many different partitioning schemes.  So it seems to me 
> that the first thing used wasn't /forever/.
> 
>> Seems to me, in the old daze where space was supposedly at a premium, 
>> that non-use would have been accounted for.
> 
> The slack space at the end of the files verses the allocation that they 
> consumed has been a form of contention for the entire time that I've 
> been using hard drives.  That's where cluster sizes comes into play with 
> file systems.
* Poor solution, i think.
   More aggressive and allocation messy, is to (behind the scene) have 
variable start location and variable file length.
   A no-byte-goes-unused scheme.

> 
>> Well, as a result we have (at least i do not have to take off my shoes 
>> to count) 4 (four) partitions.
> 
> What is a partition?
> 
>   - primary
>   - logical
>   - BSD disk slice
>   - Microsoft dynamic
>   - Logical Volume
>   - something else
> 
>> Then these new(er) OSes go and WASTE one by eating a partition for the 
>> very space-wasting boot sector...more space non-use.
> 
> I suppose that you're talking about Microsoft OSes.  I can still install 
> contemporary Linux in a single partition with the boot loader living in 
> the unused space of the first sector that is not included in a partition.
> 
>> And they go-ahead and byte all over attempts to (independently) make 4 
>> partitions.
> 
> I think your attempts are significantly different than my ... successes.
> 
>> So, for arguments sake, i would like to put on the hard drive DOS, 
>> Linux, Win7 and Win10.
> 
> DOS will almost certainly need it's own partition.
* A complete DOS environment will live happily in a WIN folder.

> 
> Linux will almost certainly need it's own partition.
> 
> Windows 7 and Windows 10 may be able to be installed in the same common 
> partition.  I've done so with Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows 
> XP in the past.  --  I'm sure it's contrary to Microsoft's 
> recommendations.  But that doesn't mean that it's not possible.
> 
>> And since i am starting with 4 drives i would naively partition an 
>> empty drive into 4 partitions, and just copy each drive onto a 
>> partition and use a partition manager to select and boot where i want.
> 
> /Partition/ managers and /boot/ managers are distinctly *different* 
> things.  They frequently come as a bundle, but they are quite different 
> things.  The former is meant for altering partition tables.  The latter 
> is meant to allow you to boot different OSs.  Sometimes the latter only 
> automates altering the active partition.  Usually the latter is in and 
> of itself a micro OS that presents you with a menu to choose what OS you 
> want to chain load.
* The boot manager allows a copy of a configured OS to me in a 
partition, avoiding need to re-install a bunch of programs.
   That can save daze for a given OS.
   But the eat-2-partition-per-os Micro$uck model decreases number of 
OSes that can live on a drive.

> 
>> Comments?
> 
> There is a lot of minutia in what you are talking about.  Some minutia 
> is compatible with other minutia, and some is incompatible.
> 
> 
> 


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