Formatting linux partition

[Eric D.]

on 9/5/02 10:13, Eric D. at liriodendron@mac.com wrote:

> on 8/5/02 18:38, Timothy A. Seufert at tas@mindspring.com wrote:
> 
>> At 4:14 PM -0400 5/8/02, Eric D. wrote:
>>> Hello ya'll, is there any way to get a formerly linux partition reformatted
>>> as HFS?
>> 
>> Yes.
>> 
>> Using pdisk, delete that partition.  Then create it again, using the
>> same base and length.  When you recreate it, use the uppercase C
>> "create partition" command instead of the normal lowercase c.  The
>> uppercase option lets you specify the partition type (lowercase c
>> will always create partitions as "Apple_UNIX_SVR2", which is what you
>> want for Linux partitions).  Enter "Apple_HFS" (without the quotes)
>> as the type, and anything you like for the name.
>> 
>> At this point it's really still a Linux partition, it's just now
>> marked as HFS.  But that's OK.  Just boot MacOS.  MacOS will try to
>> mount the partition because its type signature in the partition table
>> is Apple_HFS, discover that the HFS magic numbers aren't present at
>> the beginning of the partition, and then ask you if you want to
>> format or eject the unreadable disk.  Tell it to format, select HFS
>> or HFS+ as you like, and you should be good to go.
> 
> Now my next question is:
> 
> How do I get to pdisk? I assume I have to be in YDL to run the app, but I
> doubt that I will be allowed to format the boot partition.
> 
> I have the YDL 2.1 and 2.2 Install CDs and tried booting the 2.1 CD but it
> wouldn't let me (failed with some error & said it would restart in 180
> seconds (& I wasn't able to command-control-power to restart for the first
> time ever (B&W G3, ADB keyboard)... I thought com-ctrl-pwr was a hardware
> thing and didn't think software could over-ride it)).
> 
> I've mangled the Linux partition (1536 MB) with the installer (trying to
> trick it into formatting me one big boot partition). Should I re-install YDL
> and try deleting the partition that way (using your pdisk instructions)?

Well, I wrote the partition table (using the Mac OS 9 version of pdisk) and
am restarting. Let's keep fingers crossed.