# graphical disk partitioner



## z662 (Nov 29, 2009)

Hello,  

I wanted to know if a graphical disk partitioner existed, I have been unable to find one.  Really all I need to do is partition a hdd into 2 different sizes (500gb into a 300 gb slice and a 200 gb slice) and partition an external hdd into fat32.  I used dd and newfs to take care of the 500gb drive, however I did not know how to cut it into multiple slices properly and would rather use a graphical tool due to its ease of use.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thank you


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## jb_fvwm2 (Nov 29, 2009)

You can use a file with fdisk (I've done it three 
times, but to explain it here would take more time
than I have for the next several days). Most times
I use bootIt, though, which can create BSD slices too
"165/A5h: xBSD" if it is not in the menu (yet).  
Shareware...
..........OTOH
if you create the file: (say, file_disk)

p 3 165 * 200G

then run

```
fdisk -f file_disk -v -u /dev/ad1
```
That *may* (backup first!) create a 200G ufs2 partition
on /dev/ad1 after the first two (of four possible)
partitions.  (Vary 165 maybe for fat32, ).  No time
here to re-study whether my explanation, HERE, matches the
actual results of THAT fdisk command with THAT file.


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## phoenix (Nov 29, 2009)

sade() Gives you the same disk slicer and paritioner that you use in sysinstall.

There are also a couple of ports like sfdisk available.


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## zeiz (Nov 29, 2009)

Indeed sysinstall can take care of your disks but if you want GUI you may want to try Parted Magic. It's small (<100MB) "Live" linux distro and it cannot create ufs file systems but you can partition your disks and then when installing FreeBSD just choose already created partition. With parted magic you can create a partition for FreeBSD as "linux swap" or fat32 or just leave a free space. 

Lets say you need 300GB for Windows and 200GB for FreeBSD on your internal disk and also you need to format external disk with fat32 for storage/backups accessible from both OSs. I would create 300GB primary partition for Windows on disk1 and leave 200GB remaining as free space or make it "linux swap" partition. Then I'd format disk2 to fat32. Then install windows. Then install FreeBSD using sysinstall and choose for it that "free space"(just choose it and press C, accept defaults, press Q) or "linux swap"(choose, press D, C (also accept defaults), Q). On second screen (bsd label) pay attention to choose right partition (not windows and press A that will automatically create all FreeBSD subpartitions on that partition (slice).

Parted Magic is really nice piece of software. Last versions use LXDE as wm. I choose "vesa" (instead of X) and I get amazing quality desktop on my 1680x1050 monitor. 
Goood luck!

PS. I use GAG as bootmanager, very light and convenient.


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## z662 (Nov 29, 2009)

Thank you for all the responses, I ended up using sade as it was very easy to figure out and take care of everything.  Thank you for everyone's input and suggestions!


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## hedwards (Nov 29, 2009)

I typically use either sysinstall or gparted, depending upon what I need to do, gparted does quite a bit and I haven't had any trouble with it.


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