This is the Main Partition (or ``FDISK'') Editor. Possible commands are printed at the bottom and the Master Boot Record contents are shown at the top. You can move up and down with the arrow keys and (C)reate a new partition whenever the highlighted selection bar is over a partition whose type is marked as "unused." You are expected to leave this screen with at least one partition marked "FreeBSD." Note that unlike Linux, you don't need to create multiple FreeBSD fdisk partition entries for different things like swap, file systems, etc. The usual convention is to create ONE FreeBSD partition per drive and then subsection this partition into swap and file systems with the Label editor. No actual changes will be made to the disk until you (C)ommit from the Install menu or use the (W)rite option here! You're working with what is essentially a copy of the disk label(s), both here and in the Label Editor. If you want to use the entire disk for FreeBSD, type `A'. You'll be asked whether or not you wish to keep the disk (potentially) compatible with other operating systems, i.e. the information in the FDISK table should be kept valid. If you select the default of `Yes', slices will be aligned to fictitious cylinder boundaries and space will be reserved in front of the FreeBSD slice for a [future] possible boot manager. For the truly dedicated disk case, you can select `No' at the compatibility prompt. In that case, all BIOS geometry considerations will no longer be in effect and you can safely ignore any ``The detected geometry is invalid'' warning messages you may later see. It is also not necessary in this case to set a partition bootable or install an MBR boot manager as both things are then irrelevant. The FreeBSD slice will start at absolute sector 0 of the disk (so that FreeBSD's disk label is identical to the Master Boot Record) and extend to the very last sector of the disk medium. Needless to say, such a disk cannot have any sort of a boot manager, `disk manager', or anything else that has to interact with the BIOS. This option is therefore only considered safe for SCSI disks and most IDE disks and is primarily intented for people who are going to set up a dedicated FreeBSD server or workstation, not a typical `home PC'. The flags field has the following legend: '=' -- This partition is properly aligned. '>' -- This partition doesn't end before cylinder 1024 'R' -- This partition contains the root (/) filesystem 'B' -- Partition employs BAD144 bad-spot handling 'C' -- This is the FreeBSD 2.0-compatibility partition (default) 'A' -- This partition is marked active. If you select a partition for Bad144 handling, it will be scanned for bad blocks before any new filesystems are made on it. If no partition is marked Active, you will need to either install a Boot Manager (the option for which will be presented later in the installation) or set one Active before leaving this screen. To leave the partition editor, type `Q'.