1 Topic by Lotosdrache

  • Lotosdrache
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  • Registered: 2021-04-27
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Topic: Assign Partition-ID WITHOUT formatting partition

Hi!

I use gparted to configure HDDs in my retro PCs running DR-DOS and Windows 98SE. However, I have a problem in doing so:
When creating and formatting a DOS partition with FAT16>32MB or a Win98SE partition with FAT32, the resulting file system is not compatible with the setup program and boot process of DR-DOS and Win98SE, respectively. I get an I/O error. As a result of this, I have to format the partitions a second time using the corresponding system tool before starting the installation routine.

I would like to avoid formatting the partitions twice but when I choose "unformatted" then gparted assigns partition-ID 83 to the created partitions (= Linux native partition) making them inaccessible for DOS/Win98SE.

My wish:
It is possible to implement an option "no formatting" that allows to select just the partition-ID e.g.

04 = DOS 3.0+ 16-bit FAT (up to 32M)
05 = DOS 3.3+ Extended Partition
06 = DOS 3.31+ 16-bit FAT (over 32M)
0B = WIN95 OSR2 FAT32
0C = WIN95 OSR2 FAT32, LBA-mapped
0E = WIN95: DOS 16-bit FAT, LBA-mapped
0F = WIN95: Extended partition, LBA-mapped

but does not format the created partition?

I use gparted live 0.13.1-2. If this has already been realized in the current version, please let me know.

Greetings,

2 Reply by mfleetwo

  • mfleetwo
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  • Registered: 2012-05-18
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Re: Assign Partition-ID WITHOUT formatting partition

GParted uses libparted from the the GNU Parted project for partition manipulation.  Libparted doesn't expose partition types.  Instead you tell it the type of the file system to store in a partition and it automatically sets the partition ID.
* ped_partition_set_system()
* libparted/labels/dos.c:msdos_partition_set_system()

GParted is about making partitioning as simple as possible for 99% of the use cases.

Unfortunately this is to small a use case and libparted makes it too complicated to do, so this feature will never be added to GParted.