Parted User's Manual


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GNU Parted User Manual

Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.

This document describes the use of GNU Parted, a program for creating, destroying, resizing, checking and copying hard drive partitions, and the file systems on them.

This document applies roughly to version 1.7.0trunk of GNU Parted.

The original version was written by Andrew Clausen in text format. Richard M. Kreuter translated it into Texinfo format in 2002, to be heavily edited by Leslie P. Polzer in 2006.

Short Contents


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1 Introduction


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1.1 Overview of GNU Parted

GNU Parted is a program for creating, destroying, resizing, checking and copying partitions, and the file systems on them.

This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, for reorganizing disk usage, for copying data between hard disks and for “disk imaging” — replicating an installation on another computer.

This documentation is written with the assumption that the reader has some understanding of partitioning and file systems. If you want to learn more about these, the upcoming GNU Storage Guide is recommended reading.

GNU Parted was designed to minimize the chance of data loss. For example, it was designed to avoid data loss during interruptions (like power failure) and performs many safety checks. However, there could be bugs in GNU Parted, so you should back up your important files before running Parted. Also note that reiserfs support relies on libreiserfs, which does not fulfil the aforementioned requirement. The same holds for any external tools like ntfsresize.

The GNU Parted homepage is http://www.gnu.org/software/parted. The library and frontend themselves can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/parted. You can also find a listing of mailing lists, notes for contributing and more useful information on the web site.

Please send bug reports to bug-parted@gnu.org. When sending bug reports, please include the version of GNU Parted. Please include the output from these commands (for disk /dev/hda):

     # parted /dev/hda print unit s print unit chs print

Feel free to ask for help on this list — just check that your question isn't answered here first. If you don't understand the documentation, please tell us, so we can explain it better. General philosophy is: if you need to ask for help, then something needs to be fixed so you (and others) don't need to ask for help.

Also, we'd love to hear your ideas :-)


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1.2 Software Required for the use of Parted

If you're installing or compiling Parted yourself, you'll need to have some other programs installed. If you are compiling Parted, you will need both the normal and devel packages of these programs installed:


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1.3 Platforms on which GNU Parted runs

Hopefully, this list will grow a lot. If you do not have one of these platforms, then you can use a rescue disk and a static binary of GNU Parted. See Static binaries.

GNU/Linux
Linux versions 2.0 and up, on Alpha, x86 PCs, PC98, Macintosh PowerPC, Sun hardware.
GNU/Hurd

GNU libc 2.1 or higher is required. You can probably use older versions by using the `--disable-nls' option. See Building GNU Parted. (Note: I think we have now dropped this requirement. TODO: check if libc 2.0 works!)


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1.4 Terms of distribution for GNU Parted

GNU Parted is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License Version 2. This should have been included with the Parted distribution, in the COPYING file. If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.

Libparted is considered part of GNU Parted. It is covered by the GNU General Public License. It is NOT released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).


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1.5 Building GNU Parted

If you want to compile GNU Parted, this is generally done with:

     $ ./configure
     $ make

However, there are a few options for configure:

--without-readline
turns off use of readline. This is useful for making rescue disks, etc., where few libraries are available.
--disable-debug
don't include assertions
--disable-dynamic-loading
disables dynamic loading of some libraries (only libreiserfs for now, although we hope to expand this). Dynamic loading is useful because it allows you to reuse libparted shared libraries even when you don't know if some libraries will be available. It has a small overhead (mainly linking with libdl), so it may be useful to disable it on bootdisks if you don't need the flexibility.
--disable-fs
disable all file system support
--disable-nls
turns off native language support. This is useful for use with old versions of glibc, or a trimmed down version of glibc suitable for rescue disks.
--disable-shared
turns off shared libraries. This may be necessary for use with old versions of GNU libc, if you get a compile error about a “spilled register”. Also useful for boot/rescue disks.
--disable-Werror
ignore warning messages in compilation
--enable-discover-only
support only reading/probing (reduces size considerably)
--enable-mtrace
enable malloc() debugging
--enable-read-only
disable writing (for debugging)


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1.6 Using static binaries of GNU Parted

1.6.1 Introduction

If you want to run GNU Parted on a machine without GNU/Linux installed, or you want to resize a root or boot partition, you will need to use a boot disk.

Special boot disk images for GNU Parted used to be available, but with the emergence of a plethora of rescue disks and Live CDs that all include GNU Parted this is no longer necessary. However, please note that these disks often ship with out-of-date versions of Parted. To compensate for this a static binary of the latest GNU Parted version is available, which you can use thus:

1.6.2 Creating the Parted disk

  1. Boot your system
  2. Download parted-static-VERSION.tgz from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/parted/static
  3. Unpack the tarball, resulting in a file called “parted.static".
  4. Insert a floppy.
  5. Do a low-level format on it (on GNU/Linux this can be achieved with the tool “fdformat" from the “util-linux" package. This is basically a sanity check because floppy disks often contain bad blocks.
  6. Create a file system. Example:
              $ parted /dev/fd0 mklabel loop mkpartfs primary ext2 0 1.4
         
  7. Mount the floppy disk, e.g.,
              $ mount -t ext2 /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
         
  8. Copy parted.static to the floppy, e.g.,
              $ cp parted.static /mnt/floppy
         
  9. Unmount the floppy, e.g.,
              $ umount /mnt/floppy
         

1.6.3 Using the Parted disk

  1. Choose a rescue disk that suits you.
  2. Boot off your rescue disk. Mount the disk you copied Parted onto.
  3. Run Parted. For example,
              # cd /mnt/floppy
              # ./parted-static
         


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2 Using Parted


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2.1 Introduction to Partitioning

Unfortunately, partitioning your disk is rather complicated. This is because there are interactions between many different systems that need to be taken into consideration.

This manual used to introduce the reader to these systems and their working. This content has moved to the GNU Storage Guide.


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2.2 Using GNU Parted

Parted has two modes: command line and interactive. Parted should always be started with:

     # parted device

where device is the hard disk device to edit. (If you're lazy and omit the DEVICE argument, Parted will attempt to guess which device you want.)

In command line mode, this is followed by one or more commands. For example:

     # parted /dev/sda resize 1 52Mb 104Mb mkfs 2 fat16

Options (like --help) can only be specified on the command line.

In interactive mode, commands are entered one at a time at a prompt, and modify the disk immediately. For example:

     (parted) resize 1 52.0005Mb 104.5Mb
     (parted) mkfs 2 fat16

Unambiguous abbreviations are allowed. For example, you can type “p” instead of “print”, and “resi” instead of “resize”. Commands can be typed either in English, or your native language (if your language has been translated). This may create ambiguities. Commands are case-insensitive.

Numbers indicating partition locations can be whole numbers or decimals. The suffix selects the unit, which may be one of those described in unit, except CHS and compact. If no suffix is given, then the default unit is assumed. Negative numbers count back from the end of the disk, with “-1s” indicating the end of the disk. Parted will compute sensible ranges for the locations you specify (e.g. a range of +/- 500 MB when you specify the location in “G”). Use the sector unit “s” to specify exact locations.

If you don't give a parameter to a command, Parted will prompt you for it. For example:

     (parted) resize 1
     Start? 0Gb
     End? 40Gb

Parted will always warn you before doing something that is potentially dangerous, unless the command is one of those that is inherently dangerous (viz., rm, mklabel and mkfs). For example, if you attempt to shrink a partition “too much” (i.e., by more than the free space available), Parted will automatically reduce the shrinkage so that the partition is the smallest it can be without losing data. If this size is significantly different from the size requested, Parted will warn you. Since many partitioning systems have complicated constraints, Parted will usually do something slightly different to what you asked. (For example, create a partition starting at 10.352Mb, not 10.4Mb) If the calculated values differ too much, Parted will ask you for confirmation.


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2.3 Command Line Options

When invoked from the command line, Parted supports the following syntax:

     # parted [option] device [command [argument]]

Available options and commands follow. For detailed explanations of the use of Parted commands, see Command explanations. Options begin with a hyphen, commands do not:

Options:

`-h'
`--help'
display a help message
`-i'
`--interactive'
prompt for user intervention
`-s'
`--script'
never prompt the user
`-v'
`--version'
display the version


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2.4 Parted Session Commands

GNU Parted provides the following commands:


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2.4.1 check

— Command: check number

Checks if the file system on partition number has any errors.

Example:

          (parted) check 1
     

Check the file system on partition 1.


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2.4.2 cp

— Command: cp [from-device] from-number to-number

Copies the file system on the partition from-number to partition to-number, deleting the original contents of the destination partition.

An optional device parameter, from-device can be given, which specifies which device the source partition is on.

Supported file systems:

Example:

          (parted) cp /dev/hdb 2 3
     

Copy partition 2 of /dev/hdb (i.e., /dev/hdb2) to partition on 3, on the device Parted was loaded with, destroying the original contents of partition 3.


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2.4.3 help

— Command: help [command]

Prints general help, or help on command.

Example:

          (parted) help resize
     

Print help for the resize command.


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2.4.4 mklabel

— Command: mklabel label-type

Creates a new disk label, of type label-type. The new disk label will have no partitions. This command (normally) won't technically destroy your data, but it will make it basically unusable, and you will need to use the rescue command (see Related information) to recover any partitions. Parted works on all partition tables. 1

label-type must be one of these supported disk labels:

Example:

          (parted) mklabel msdos
     

Create an MS-DOS disk label. This is still the most common disk label for PCs.


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2.4.5 mkfs

— Command: mkfs number fs-type

Makes a file system fs-type on partition number, destroying all data that resides on that partition.

Supported file systems:

Example:

          (parted) mkfs 2 fat32
     

Make a fat32 file system on partition 2.


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2.4.6 mkpart

— Command: mkpart part-type [fs-type] start end

Creates a new partition, without creating a new file system on that partition. This is useful for creating partitions for file systems (or LVM, etc.) that Parted doesn't support. You may specify a file system type, to set the appropriate partition code in the partition table for the new partition. fs-type is required for data partitions (i.e., non-extended partitions). start and end are the offset from the beginning of the disk, that is, the “distance” from the start of the disk.

part-type is one of: primary, extended, logical. Extended and logical are only used for msdos and dvh disk labels.

fs-type must be on of these supported file systems:

Example:

          (parted) mkpart logical 0.0 692.1
     

Create a logical partition that will contain an ext2 file system. The partition will start at the beginning of the disk, and end 692.1 megabytes into the disk.


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2.4.7 mkpartfs

— Command: mkpartfs part-type fs-type start end

Creates a new partition of type part-type with a new file system of type fs-type on it. The new partition will start start megabytes, and end end megabytes from the beginning of the disk. Do not use this command to recover a deleted partition (use mkpart instead).

part-type is one of: primary, extended, logical. Extended and logical are only used for msdos and dvh disk labels.

fs-type must be one of these supported file systems:

Example:

          (parted) mkpartfs logical ext2 440 670
     

Make a logical partition and write an ext2 file system, starting 440 megabytes and ending 670 megabytes from the beginning of the disk.


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2.4.8 move

— Command: move number start end

Moves partition on the disk, by moving its beginning to start. You can't move a partition so that the old and new positions overlap. That is, you can only move partitions into free space. If you want to resize a partition in-place, use resize.

Move never changes the partition number.

Supported file systems:

Example:

          (parted) move 2 150M 500M
     

Move the partition numbered 2 so that it begins 150 megabytes from the start of the disk, and ends 500 megabytes from the start.


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2.4.9 name

— Command: name number name

Sets the name for the partition number (GPT, Mac, MIPS and PC98 only). The name can be placed in quotes.

Example:

          (parted) name 2 'Secret Documents'
     

Set the name of partition 2 to `Secret Documents'.


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2.4.10 print

— Command: print [number]

Displays the partition table on the device parted is editing, or detailed information about a particular partition.

Example:

          (parted) print
          Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0.000-2445.679 megabytes
          Disk label type: msdos
          Minor    Start       End     Type      Filesystem  Flags
          1          0.031    945.000  primary   fat32       boot, lba
          2        945.000   2358.562  primary   ext2
          3       2358.562   2445.187  primary   linux-swap
          (parted) print 1
          Minor: 1
          Flags: boot, lba
          File System: fat32
          Size:            945.000Mb (0%)
          Minimum size:     84.361Mb (0%)
          Maximum size:   2445.679Mb (100%)
     


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2.4.11 quit

— Command: quit

Quits Parted.

It is only after Parted exits that the Linux kernel knows about the changes Parted has made to the disks. However, the changes caused by typing your commands will probably be made to the disk immediately after typing a command. However, the operating system's cache and the disk's hardware cache may delay this.


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2.4.12 rescue

— Command: rescue start end

Rescue a lost partition that used to be located approximately between start and end. If such a partition is found, Parted will ask you if you want to create a partition for it. This is useful if you accidently deleted a partition with parted's rm command, for example.

Example:

          (parted) print
          Disk geometry for /dev/hdc: 0.000-8063.507 megabytes
          Disk label type: msdos
          Minor    Start       End     Type      Filesystem  Flags
          1          0.031   8056.032  primary   ext3
          (parted) rm
          Partition number? 1
          (parted) print
          Disk geometry for /dev/hdc: 0.000-8063.507 megabytes
          Disk label type: msdos
          Minor    Start       End     Type      Filesystem  Flags
     

OUCH! We deleted our ext3 partition!!! Parted comes to the rescue...

          (parted) rescue
          Start? 0
          End? 8056
          Information: A ext3 primary partition was found at 0.031MB ->
          8056.030MB.  Do you want to add it to the partition table?
          Yes/No/Cancel? y
          (parted) print
          Disk geometry for /dev/hdc: 0.000-8063.507 megabytes
          Disk label type: msdos
          Minor    Start       End     Type      Filesystem  Flags
          1          0.031   8056.032  primary   ext3
     

It's back! :)


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2.4.13 resize

— Command: resize number start end

Resizes the partition with number number. The partition will start start from the beginning of the disk, and end end from the beginning of the disk. resize never changes the partition number. Extended partitions can be resized only so long as the new extended partition completely contains all logical partitions.

Note that Parted can manipulate partitions whether or not they have been defragmented, so you do not need to defragmenting the disk before using Parted.

Supported file systems:

Example:

          (parted) resize 3 200M 850M
     

Resize partition 3, so that it begins 200 megabytes and ends 850 megabytes from the beginning of the disk.


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2.4.14 rm

— Command: rm number

Removes the partition with number number. If you accidently delete a partition with this command, use mkpart (not mkpartfs) to recover it. Also, you can use the gpart program (see Related information) to recover damaged disk labels.

Note for msdos disk labels: if you delete a logical partition, all logical partitions with a larger partition number will be renumbered. For example, if you delete a logical partition with a partition number of 6, then logical partitions that were number 7, 8 and 9 would be renumbered to 6, 7 and 8 respectively. This means, for example, that you have to update /etc/fstab on GNU/Linux systems.

Example:

          (parted) rm 3
     

Remove partition 3.


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2.4.15 select

— Command: select device

Selects the device, device, for Parted to edit. The device can be a Linux hard disk device, a partition, a software RAID device or LVM logical volume.

Example:

          (parted) select /dev/hdb
     

Select /dev/hdb (the slave device on the first ide controller on Linux) as the device to edit.


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2.4.16 set

— Command: set number flag state

Changes a flag on the partition with number number. A flag can be either “on” or “off”. Some or all of these flags will be available, depending on what disk label you are using:

`boot'
(Mac, MS-DOS, PC98) - should be enabled if you want to boot off the partition. The semantics vary between disk labels. For MS-DOS disk labels, only one partition can be bootable. If you are installing LILO on a partition that partition must be bootable. For PC98 disk labels, all ext2 partitions must be bootable (this is enforced by Parted).
`lba'
(MS-DOS) - this flag can be enabled to tell MS DOS, MS Windows 9x and MS Windows ME based operating systems to use Linear (LBA) mode.
`root'
(Mac) - this flag should be enabled if the partition is the root device to be used by Linux.
`swap'
(Mac) - this flag should be enabled if the partition is the swap device to be used by Linux.
`hidden'
(MS-DOS, PC98) - this flag can be enabled to hide partitions from Microsoft operating systems.
`raid'
(MS-DOS) - this flag can be enabled to tell linux the partition is a software RAID partition.
`LVM'
(MS-DOS) - this flag can be enabled to tell linux the partition is a physical volume.
`PALO'
(MS-DOS) - this flag can be enabled so that the partition can be used by the Linux/PA-RISC boot loader, palo.
`PREP'
(MS-DOS) - this flag can be enabled so that the partition can be used as a PReP boot partition on PowerPC PReP or IBM RS6K/CHRP hardware.

The print command displays all enabled flags for each partition.

Example:

          (parted) set 1 boot on
     

Set the `boot' flag on partition 1.


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2.4.17 unit

— Command: unit unit

Selects the current default unit that Parted will use to display locations and capacities on the disk and to interpret those given by the user if they are not suffixed by an unit.

unit may be one of:

`s'
sector (n bytes depending on the sector size, often 512)
`B'
byte
`kB'
kilobyte (1000 bytes)
`MB'
megabyte (1000000 bytes)
`GB'
gigabyte (1000000000 bytes)
`TB'
terabyte (1000000000000 bytes)
`%'
percentage of the device (between 0 and 100)
`cyl'
cylinders (related to the BIOS CHS geometry)
`chs'
cylinders, heads, sectors addressing (related to the BIOS CHS geometry)
`compact'
This is a special unit that defaults to megabytes for input, and picks a unit that gives a compact human readable representation for output.

The default unit apply only for the output and when no unit is specified after an input number. Input numbers can be followed by an unit (without any space or other character between them), in which case this unit apply instead of the default unit for this particular number, but CHS and cylinder units are not supported as a suffix. If no suffix is given, then the default unit is assumed. Parted will compute sensible ranges for the locations you specify (e.g. a range of +/- 500 MB when you specify the location in “G”) and will select the nearest location in this range from the one you wrote that satisfies constraints from both the operation, the filesystem being worked on, the disk label, other partitions and so on. Use the sector unit “s” to specify exact locations (if they do not satisfy all onstraints, Parted will ask you for the nearest solution). Note that negative numbers count back from the end of the disk, with “-1s” pointing to the end of the disk.

Example:

          (parted) unit compact
          (parted) print
          Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0kB - 123GB
          Disk label type: msdos
          Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system  Flags
          1       32kB    1078MB  1077MB  primary   reiserfs     boot
          2       1078MB  2155MB  1078MB  primary   linux-swap
          3       2155MB  123GB   121GB   extended
          5       2155MB  7452MB  5297MB  logical   reiserfs
          (parted) unit chs print
          Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0,0,0 - 14946,225,62
          BIOS cylinder,head,sector geometry: 14946,255,63.  Each cylinder
          is 8225kB.
          Disk label type: msdos
          Number  Start       End         Type      File system  Flags
          1       0,1,0       130,254,62  primary   reiserfs     boot
          2       131,0,0     261,254,62  primary   linux-swap
          3       262,0,0     14945,254,62 extended
          5       262,2,0     905,254,62  logical   reiserfs
          (parted) unit mb print
          Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0MB - 122942MB
          Disk label type: msdos
          Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system  Flags
          1       0MB     1078MB  1077MB  primary   reiserfs     boot
          2       1078MB  2155MB  1078MB  primary   linux-swap
          3       2155MB  122935MB 120780MB extended
          5       2155MB  7452MB  5297MB  logical   reiserfs
     


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3 Related information

If you want to find out more information, please see the GNU Parted web site.

These files in the Parted distribution contain further information:


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Appendix A Copying This Manual


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A.1 GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.1, March 2000
     Copyright © 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
     51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
     
     Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
     of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
  1. PREAMBLE

    The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other written document free in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.

    This License is a kind of “copyleft”, which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.

    We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.

  2. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS

    This License applies to any manual or other work that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. The “Document”, below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as “you”.

    A “Modified Version” of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language.

    A “Secondary Section” is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly within that overall subject. (For example, if the Document is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them.

    The “Invariant Sections” are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License.

    The “Cover Texts” are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License.

    A “Transparent” copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose specification is available to the general public, whose contents can be viewed and edited directly and straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose markup has been designed to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. A copy that is not “Transparent” is called “Opaque”.

    Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ascii without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple HTML designed for human modification. Opaque formats include PostScript, PDF, proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML produced by some word processors for output purposes only.

    The “Title Page” means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, “Title Page” means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.

  3. VERBATIM COPYING

    You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.

    You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies.

  4. COPYING IN QUANTITY

    If you publish printed copies of the Document numbering more than 100, and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.

    If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.

    If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a publicly-accessible computer-network location containing a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material, which the general network-using public has access to download anonymously at no charge using public-standard network protocols. If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to the public.

    It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.

  5. MODIFICATIONS

    You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:

    1. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
    2. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has less than five).
    3. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.
    4. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
    5. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.
    6. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
    7. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice.
    8. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
    9. Preserve the section entitled “History”, and its title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section entitled “History” in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.
    10. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the “History” section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.
    11. In any section entitled “Acknowledgments” or “Dedications”, preserve the section's title, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgments and/or dedications given therein.
    12. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
    13. Delete any section entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.
    14. Do not retitle any existing section as “Endorsements” or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.

    If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.

    You may add a section entitled “Endorsements”, provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties—for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.

    You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.

    The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.

  6. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

    You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice.

    The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.

    In the combination, you must combine any sections entitled “History” in the various original documents, forming one section entitled “History”; likewise combine any sections entitled “Acknowledgments”, and any sections entitled “Dedications”. You must delete all sections entitled “Endorsements.”

  7. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

    You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects.

    You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.

  8. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS

    A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, does not as a whole count as a Modified Version of the Document, provided no compilation copyright is claimed for the compilation. Such a compilation is called an “aggregate”, and this License does not apply to the other self-contained works thus compiled with the Document, on account of their being thus compiled, if they are not themselves derivative works of the Document.

    If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one quarter of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on covers that surround only the Document within the aggregate. Otherwise they must appear on covers around the whole aggregate.

  9. TRANSLATION

    Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License provided that you also include the original English version of this License. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original English version of this License, the original English version will prevail.

  10. TERMINATION

    You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

  11. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

    The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.

    Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.

A.1.1 ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:

       Copyright (C)  year  your name.
       Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
       under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
       or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
       with the Invariant Sections being list their titles, with the
       Front-Cover Texts being list, and with the Back-Cover Texts being list.
       A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU
       Free Documentation License''.

If you have no Invariant Sections, write “with no Invariant Sections” instead of saying which ones are invariant. If you have no Front-Cover Texts, write “no Front-Cover Texts” instead of “Front-Cover Texts being list”; likewise for Back-Cover Texts.

If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.


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Appendix B This manual's history

This manual was based on the file USER included in GNU Parted version 1.4.22 source distribution. The GNU Parted source distribution is available at ftp.gnu.org/gnu/parted.

Initial Texinfo formatting by Richard M. Kreuter, 2002.

Maintainance by Andrew Clausen from 2002 to 2005 and by Leslie P. Polzer from July 2005 onwards.

This manual is distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.1 or later, at your discretion, any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. See Copying This Manual, for details.


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Index


Footnotes

[1] Everyone seems to have a different word for “disk label” — these are all the same thing: partition table, partition map.