On Sun, 1 Sep 2002, Aldis A. Tuck wrote:

> Greetings,
> I have MDK 8.2 running, I have for some time been
> confused on how Linux creates partitions.  I want to
> tell you what I know and then if I'm wrong maybe you
> can straghten me out.  HDA is the total drive, it's
> partition is HDA1 and then you can have additional
> partitions like HDA2, HDA3 and so on.
> 
> Is that right?  So can I partition my drive after
> Linux is already up and running without having to
> reinstall Linux?  I want to create a partition that I
> can use to put backup files on that I don't want to
> lose, if Linux gets screwed up and I have to
> reinstall.

Sounds like what I did when installing gentoo.  I booted from a set of 
slackware floppies, partitioned the hard drive, formatted the filesystems 
and a little swap, installed the base system, and chrooted my installed 
system.  I installed linux and was running it without ever rebooting!

For partitions, I made a small one for /boot.  I found that this had to be 
done for older computers with large hard drives.  There was no way to get 
this old Compaq to boot a kernel from a 160GB hard drive.  The hardware 
was too much for the BIOS to chew on.  It needed the small bite sized baby 
food portions below the 512MB limit.

The rest of the partitions can be divided up in any way imaginable or left 
alone in one big chunk.  I usually have a small swap partition after that.

I wouldn't worry about making a seperate partition for backup files, but 
it doesn't hurt.  Even though I never destroyed my own stuff, I usually 
use cdroms for backups.  Backing up on a seperate, or removable drive, is 
a good method of backups.  Unless the drive gets dropped or bumped against 
a surface...

> And if I have to reinstall, can't I choose not to
> format my backup partition?

Most distributions will give you flexibility.  Beware of the "easy" 
install options that will do everything for you.  That's the "format 
everything and get it working without any user input" option.

Does that answer your question?