Partition table

The partition table specifies the partitioning of a data memory in partitions. Partitions are several independently usable parts on the storage medium. Partitions and partition tables were introduced for hard disk drives. On floppy partition tables are due to lack of capacity of the volumes usually not employed.

The term partition table includes all forms of partitioning, if they use a table; colloquially is often the most widely used in the Master Boot Record ( MBR) partition table contained the IBM - compatible PC equated with the term, although this is not entirely correct. Partitioning at the level of a file system (see Logical Volume Manager) is not part of the concept.

The two most common partition tables are the aforementioned Master Boot Record and its successor GUID Partition Table (GPT ).

Facility

Under most operating systems on a PC partition tables are set up with a program called fdisk. There are also a variety of other programs to partition a hard drive.

Modern operating systems with graphical user interface usually offer an easy-to -use graphical utility for creating and managing partitions ( different partition tables ) to. On Microsoft Windows, this is usually the Disk Management.

→ Main article: Partition ( computer science )

Interoperability

Hard disks for IBM PC -compatible computer with the BIOS of the Master Boot Record (abbreviated MBR ) is used as partition table. It was introduced in 1983 with MS- DOS 2.0. Since the MBR is supported on nearly all major operating systems and platforms, it has become the de facto standard for partitioning on external storage media (such as memory cards, USB flash drives, Zip disks ). Therefore, it can be found on devices such as MP3 players or car radios (when a USB stick is plugged in ) as well as on external storage media of all kinds

On large drives ( larger than 2 TB) is usually the GUID partition table, short GPT used. This partition table has been defined around the year 2000 by Intel with the EFI specification and to some limitations of the MBR pick as his successor. Most modern operating systems can access GPT partitions.

Although on storage media a type of partitioning is always possible, it is by no means necessary. However, some operating systems require a partition table to access a storage medium, or may have restrictions on access and can use only individual partitions.

Specific partition tables are often employed on storage media of different systems that are used to start the system, such as workstations, but for example, Apple Macintosh to 2005 with APM and Amiga Rigid Disk on modern IBM PC -compatible computers using the BIOS successor UEFI as well as on Apple Macintosh computers since 2006 is used GUID partition Table (GPT ).

List the partition tables

  • Volume Table Of Contents ( before 1980 ), table of contents on storage systems from mainframes
  • Master Boot Record ( 1983), partition table and boot sector on BIOS-based IBM PC compatible computers
  • Apple Partition Map (1987 ), partition table on m68k and PowerPC -based Macintosh computers
  • Disklabel (1988 ), a possible partition table on all BSD operating systems since BSD4.3 -Tahoe
  • Amiga Rigid Disk, partition table on m68k and PowerPC-based Amiga computers
  • GUID Partition Table (2000), partition table on EFI -based computers
Floppy disk Logical Volume Manager (Linux) Utility software MS-DOS Head unit Byte Unified Extensible Firmware Interface Booting BSD disklabel Atari DEC Alpha Silicon Graphics IA-32 Itanium Itanium#Architecture IBM Personal Computer Ultrix
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