Drives and Partitions on Linux

Partitions

Each device has max four primary partitions. Instead of a primary partition, you can create an extended partition. An extended partition can contain several logical partitions.

Drive Naming

Devices are named differently:

  • The first Master IDE hard disk is called hda.
  • SCSI, SATA and USB are called sd.
  • Each primary partition is numbered 1 to 4.
  • Each logical partition is numbered from 5 upwards.

Hence the first logical partition on the master IDE drive will be hda5.