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From: Metspitzer on 12 Jan 2010 20:15
I thought the primary partition was the partition you put the OS on. I
am almost sure I created a primary and two secondary partitions on
drive 0. That was a long time ago.

I am trying to format drive 1. I made a primary partition of 175G and
was going to make 3 175G secondary partitions. I made the second
partition secondary and formatted it at 175G. Now I am working on the
next. The only option I get is to format it primary. I am not sure
this makes any difference, but I wondered why I can't make partitions
2-4 all secondary partitions?

Here is a screen shot of my drives. XP
http://i48.tinypic.com/x3c006.jpg
From: Bryce on 12 Jan 2010 21:46
Metspitzer wrote:

> I thought the primary partition was the partition you put
> the OS on. I am almost sure I created a primary and two
> secondary partitions on
> drive 0. That was a long time ago.
>
> I am trying to format drive 1. I made a primary partition
> of 175G and
> was going to make 3 175G secondary partitions. I made the
> second
> partition secondary and formatted it at 175G. Now I am
> working on the
> next. The only option I get is to format it primary. I
> am not sure this makes any difference, but I wondered why
> I can't make partitions 2-4 all secondary partitions?
>
> Here is a screen shot of my drives. XP
> http://i48.tinypic.com/x3c006.jpg

Windows (and DOS before that) must be installed on a primary
partition. A hard drive may have as many as four primary
partitions. One of these primary partitions can be
subdivided into secondary partitions. It's probably
possible to designate the entire primary partition as a
single secondary, but that seems of no advantage. Two or
more secondary partitions are more useful.

If disk 1 is to serve only for data storage (no windows
operating system installed there), then create a single
primary partition using the entire disk and then subdivide
it into four secondary partitions. After setting up the
partitions, format each one and your done.

Or plan ahead for a later install of windows o/s. Partition
the disk into two primary partitions. Subdivide the second
one into two or more secondaries. The first primary could
be used for data now and an o/s install later on.

Bryce
From: Metspitzer on 13 Jan 2010 01:54
On Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:46:22 -0500, Bryce <none(a)invalid.invalid>
wrote:

>Metspitzer wrote:
>
>> I thought the primary partition was the partition you put
>> the OS on. I am almost sure I created a primary and two
>> secondary partitions on
>> drive 0. That was a long time ago.
>>
>> I am trying to format drive 1. I made a primary partition
>> of 175G and
>> was going to make 3 175G secondary partitions. I made the
>> second
>> partition secondary and formatted it at 175G. Now I am
>> working on the
>> next. The only option I get is to format it primary. I
>> am not sure this makes any difference, but I wondered why
>> I can't make partitions 2-4 all secondary partitions?
>>
>> Here is a screen shot of my drives. XP
>> http://i48.tinypic.com/x3c006.jpg
>
>Windows (and DOS before that) must be installed on a primary
>partition. A hard drive may have as many as four primary
>partitions. One of these primary partitions can be
>subdivided into secondary partitions. It's probably
>possible to designate the entire primary partition as a
>single secondary, but that seems of no advantage. Two or
>more secondary partitions are more useful.
>
>If disk 1 is to serve only for data storage (no windows
>operating system installed there), then create a single
>primary partition using the entire disk and then subdivide
>it into four secondary partitions. After setting up the
>partitions, format each one and your done.
>
>Or plan ahead for a later install of windows o/s. Partition
>the disk into two primary partitions. Subdivide the second
>one into two or more secondaries. The first primary could
>be used for data now and an o/s install later on.
>
>Bryce

I plan to use the drive for data only. I have a poor understanding of
what a partition and a logical drive is. I was hoping that if I had 4
separate drive letters that a problem on one of the drives would not
carry over to the others.

I may be mistaken. Would there be an advantage in having partitions
over logical drives to keep disk errors from spreading?

Because I have such a poor understanding of what I am doing, I can't
remember just what I did, but I think I tried making the whole drive a
primary partition, and then divide it into parts, but XP wouldn't let
me.

I made primary partition of 175G and then a secondary partition that
is 575G. I then split that 575G partition into 3-175G logical drives.

Is there a better way to split up a 750G drive?
From: John Doe on 13 Jan 2010 03:48
Metspitzer <kilowatt(a)charter.net> wrote:

....

> I plan to use the drive for data only. I have a poor
> understanding of what a partition and a logical drive is. I was
> hoping that if I had 4 separate drive letters that a problem on
> one of the drives would not carry over to the others.
>
> I may be mistaken. Would there be an advantage in having
> partitions over logical drives to keep disk errors from
> spreading?

If you mean a virus, multiple partitions help, but that is
accomplished making copies of the Windows partition (maybe not
what you are interested in). If drive errors are so bad that they
cannot be corrected internally, you probably need to buy better
hard drives. Personally, I would use the storage group for complex
hard drive issues.

> Because I have such a poor understanding of what I am doing, I
> can't remember just what I did, but I think I tried making the
> whole drive a primary partition, and then divide it into parts,
> but XP wouldn't let me.

I would avoid trying to use a Microsoft utility. They never have
worked, they probably never will.

> Is there a better way to split up a 750G drive?

Use a real disk/partition manager.
From: shegeek72 on 13 Jan 2010 04:37
On Jan 12, 10:54 pm, Metspitzer <kilow...(a)charter.net> wrote:
> Because I have such a poor understanding of what I am doing, I can't
> remember just what I did, but I think I tried making the whole drive a
> primary partition, and then divide it into parts, but XP wouldn't let
> me.

XP does not come with it's own partition manager. Both Vista and Win7
do.
 

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