NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     pdisk - HFS(DPME) partition maintenance program

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     pdisk [-c] [-h] [-i] [-l] [-r] [-v] device

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     pdisk is a menu driven program which partitions disks  using
the standard
     Apple  disk  partitioning scheme described in "Inside Macintosh: Devices".
     It does not support the intel/dos partitioning  scheme  supported by fdisk.
     The device is usually one of the following:

     /dev/sd0c  /dev/sd1c /dev/sd2c /dev/sd3c /dev/sd4c /dev/sd5c
/dev/sd6c
     /dev/wd0c /dev/wd1c /dev/wd2c /dev/wd3c

     The options are as follows:

     -c      Causes pdisk to always ignore the device size listed
in the partition
  table  and  compute the device size by other
means.

     -h      Prints a rather lame set of help  messages  for  the
pdisk program.

     -i       Causes pdisk to go into an interactive mode similar
to the MacOS
             version of the program.

     -l      List the partition tables for the specified devices.

     -r      Prevents pdisk from writing to the device.

     -v      Prints version number of the program.

     An  argument  which is simply the name of a device indicates
that pdisk
     should edit the partition table of that device.

COMMAND MODE    [Toc]    [Back]

     The list of commands and their explanations are given below.

     h       command help

     p       print the partition table

     P       print ordered by base address

     i       initialize partition map

     s       change size of partition map

     c       create new partition (standard OpenBSD type)

     C       create with type also specified

     n       (re)name a partition

     d       delete a partition

     r       reorder partition entry in map

     t       change the type of an existing partition

     w       write the partition table

     q       quit editing (don't save changes)

     Commands  which  take  arguments prompt for each argument in
turn.  You can
     also type any number of the arguments  separated  by  spaces
and those
     prompts  will  be  skipped.  The only exception to typeahead
are the confirmation
 prompts on the i and w commands.  The idea being that
if we expect
     you  to  confirm the decision we shouldn't undermine that by
allowing you
     to be precipitate about it.

     Partitions are always specified by their  number,  which  is
the index of
     the  partition entry in the partition map.  Most of the commands will
     change the index numbers of all partitions after the affected partition.
     You  are  advised to print the table as frequently as necessary.

     Creating more than fifteen partitions is  not  advised,  for
compatibility
     reasons.

     The  c  (create  new partition) command is the only one with
complicated arguments.
  The first argument is the base address (in blocks)
of the partition.
  Besides a raw number, you can also specify a partition number
     followed by the letter 'p' to indicate that the first  block
of the new
     partition  should be the same as the first block of that existing free
     space partition.  The second argument is the length  of  the
partition in
     blocks.  This can be a raw number or can be a partition number followed
     by the letter 'p' to use the size of that partition  or  can
be a number
     followed  by  'k', 'm', or 'g' to indicate the size in kilobytes,
     megabytes, or gigabytes respectively.  (These are powers  of
1024, of
     course,  not powers of 1000.)  The last argument is the name
of the partition.
  This can be a single word without quotes, or a string
surrounded
     by  single or double quotes.  The type of the created partition is the
     correct type for OpenBSD.

     The C command is identical to the c command, with the  addition of a partition
 type argument after the other arguments.

     The  n  (name)  command allows the name of a partition to be
changed.  Note
     that the various "Apple_Driver"  partitions  depend  on  the
name field for
     proper  functioning.   I am not aware of any other partition
types with
     this limitation.

     The r (reorder) command allows the index  number  of  partitions to be
     changed.  The index numbers are constrained to be a contiguous sequence.

     The t (change type) command allows the type of  an  existing
partition to
     be  changed.   Examples  of  valid  partition types are: Apple_Free, Apple_HFS,
 and OpenBSD.

     The i (initialize) command prompts for the size of  the  device.  This was
     done  to get around a bug in the kernel where it reports the
wrong size
     for the device.

     The w (write) command does write the partition map out,  but
there is currently
  a  bug  in  the interaction between the disk and the
kernel where
     disklabel -c device must be issued to cause  the  kernel  to
reinterpret the
     new label.

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     disklabel(8), fdisk(8)

AUTHORS    [Toc]    [Back]

     Eryk Vershen <eryk@apple.com>.

BUGS    [Toc]    [Back]

     Some  people  believe  there  should really be just one disk
partitioning
     utility.

     pdisk should be able to create HFS partitions that work.

     Even more help should be available during user input.

OpenBSD     3.6                       September     26,      1997