[gentoo-user] TWO (probably stupid) questions about partitions

[Fernando Meira]

Hi,

this is how my disk is divided:
Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        1275    10241406    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2            1276        4208    23559322+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda3            4209        4271      506047+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda4            4272        4864     4763272+  83  Linux
/dev/hda5            1276        4208    23559291    b  W95 FAT32

Now I want to clean hda1 (which has windows) and mount there /usr and point $PORTAGE_TMPDIR there (because my gentoo system, in hda4, run out of space). Once I'm doing this, I could split that partition into smaller ones (e.g. to create /boot), but hda1 needs to be Extended. So,

1. Can /boot be inside an Extended partition? Would probably be place in hda6...
2. In case of not changing my boot config (my doing Q1), will I need to re-install my bootloader in MBR anew? Or on other words, will MBR be erased when cleaning hda1?

Question extra :) : what tends to be bigger /etc or /usr ?

Thanks,
Fernando