Wrong partition identifier for HFS

[Curtis Gedak]

When an "hfs" partition is created on a msdos disk, the partition 
identifier is set to "0x83".  The correct value for an HFS partition is 
"0xAF".

The identifier "0xAF" is used by Apple for MacOS X file systems HFS or 
HFS+ on Intel.

Following is a link to a list of partition identifiers, a set of 
commands to demonstrate the problem, and a proposed patch to fix this 
problem.

Regards,
Curtis Gedak


A)  LIST OF PARTITION IDENTIFIERS

A list of partition identifiers for the "msdos" disk label can be found at:
http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-1.html


B)  EXAMPLE COMMANDS TO DEMONSTRATE THE PROBLEM

$ parted -s /dev/sdb mklabel msdos
$ parted -s /dev/sdb mkpart primary hfs 63s 96389s
Warning: The resulting partition is not properly aligned for best 
performance.
$ fdisk -l -u /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 2147 MB, 2147483648 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 261 cylinders, total 4194304 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00019a96

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1              63       96389       48163+  83  Linux
$ 


C)  PROPOSED PATCH TO FIX INCORRECT HFS PARTITION IDENTIFIER

From b68394f22924d52c834bfd0c6865b4e5de5a03ea Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Curtis Gedak <address@hidden>
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:08:59 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] dos: set hfs partition identifier to proper value

The correct value for an "hfs" partition identifier is 0xAF.
Previously the partition identifier was incorrectly set to 0x83.
---
libparted/labels/dos.c |    5 ++++-
1 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/libparted/labels/dos.c b/libparted/labels/dos.c
index dce35b2..69c177c 100644
--- a/libparted/labels/dos.c
+++ b/libparted/labels/dos.c
@@ -86,6 +86,7 @@ static const char MBR_BOOT_CODE[] = {
#define PARTITION_LINUX        0x83
#define PARTITION_LINUX_EXT    0x85
#define PARTITION_LINUX_LVM    0x8e
+#define PARTITION_HFS        0xaf
#define PARTITION_SUN_UFS    0xbf
#define PARTITION_DELL_DIAG    0xde
#define PARTITION_GPT        0xee
@@ -1354,7 +1355,9 @@ msdos_partition_set_system (PedPartition* part,
           || !strcmp (fs_type->name, "hpfs")) {
        dos_data->system = PARTITION_NTFS;
        dos_data->system |= dos_data->hidden ? PART_FLAG_HIDDEN : 0;
-    } else if (!strcmp (fs_type->name, "sun-ufs"))
+    } else if (!strcmp (fs_type->name, "hfs"))
+        dos_data->system = PARTITION_HFS;
+    else if (!strcmp (fs_type->name, "sun-ufs"))
        dos_data->system = PARTITION_SUN_UFS;
    else if (is_linux_swap (fs_type->name))
        dos_data->system = PARTITION_LINUX_SWAP;
--
1.6.6