C partition

[amir at booboo.UUCP]

>    In addition, how about an ioctl, that can change the
>    size of the partition.
>    (one to read the size into a user program, and one
>    to reset the size).
>    
On our UTX release, we do have the capability to read the disk
partition sizes (plus other useful info like the disk geometry).
As a matter of fact, our "newfs" figures out all the "mkfs"
parameters by using this ioctl.

>    Special utilities, such as disk copiers, or bad block repairers, or whatever,
>    would set change the partitions dynamically, so as to do their stuff,
>    and then when done, restore things to the way they were.
>    
I am not sure how useful this would be.  I guess it is kind of hardware
dependent.  For example, our disk controllers require tracks to be
reformatted to allow for automatic flaw handling.  I don't see how a
"disk repair" utilitiy could use standard Unix IO to do this.  We
accoumplish this by doing physical IO to the drive which bypasses
the disk driver anyways.  Also, when would you want to copy the
bad block info from one disk to another???
Amir H. Majidimehr
Gould Inc, Computer Systems Division
{sun,pur-ee,brl-bmd}!gould!amir

-- 

Amir H. Majidimehr
Gould Inc, Computer Systems Division
{sun,pur-ee,brl-bmd}!gould!amir