Translations:Handbook:MIPS/Blocks/Disks/7/en

All disks in an SGI System require an SGI Disk Label, which serves a similar function as Sun & MS-DOS disklabels -- It stores information about the disk partitions. Creating a new SGI Disk Label will create two special partitions on the disk:
 * SGI Volume Header (9th partition): This partition is important. It is where the bootloader will reside, and in some cases, it will also contain the kernel images.
 * SGI Volume (11th partition): This partition is similar in purpose to the Sun Disklabel's third partition of "Whole Disk". This partition spans the entire disk, and should be left untouched. It serves no special purpose other than to assist the PROM in some undocumented fashion (or it is used by IRIX in some way).