Hi,

> If I understand this correctly, the suggested pullup actually makes
> fdisk *unable* to reinitialize the MBR should I want to do so.  That's
> extremely bogus.

Huh?

Consider the MBR to consist of 3 parts:

1. the MBR boot code.

2. the partition table.

3. the magic number.

The new code, whenever it reads the MBR, checks for a valid magic number
(as did the old code).  If the magic number is not valid, all three parts
are initialized with valid contents, initializing the partition table to
all zeros.  This is first done on incore data structures, and those data
structures are then used to either tell the user about the partitions, or
they are written to the disk after being further modified by the parameters,
or both.  This is more or less the same as the old code, with the exception
that the old code initialized partition 3 to occupy the complete disk except
the first track.

If the magic number is valid, normally you only manipulate the partition
table.  In order to initialize the MBR boot code, you invoke fdisk with the
-i flag.  In order to initialize the partition table, you manipulate the
4 partitions to your liking.

What else do you want?

Again for the record, the new behaviour is almost exactly the same as
what you are able to do with DOS fdisk.

Ciao,
Wolfgang
-- 
ws@TooLs.DE     (Wolfgang Solfrank, TooLs GmbH) 	+49-228-985800