> as a side question...
> can anyone explain the desirability of dynamic
> disks over basic disks
Overrides the 3 + 4 partition limit.
On a basic disk, you can have 4 partitions. One of them, the last, can be
Extended, which can hold other four (logical), a total of 7 usable
partitions, out of which Windows 9x can only correctly work with 5 (only one
primary partition can be visible at a time). It was OK back then but now
disks are growing larger and with a 120GB disk, 7 partitions are too little.
Other limitations apply due to FAT file systems and since a normal FAT has
quite a small maximum size (2G), you could not use a 60GB disk, since W95
could only see 5 partitions (1 primary + 4 logical) and it has a 10 GB
limitation per disk drive. Other limitations apply. W95 OSR2 and later can
see FAT32. That, however, is far from unlimited, FAT itself by design is
self-limitating. That's one of the reasons NTFS is here.
With a dynamic disk you can partition it however you like, it can hold
anything you like thus eliminating any future limitations. The drawback
being you need Windows NT 5.0 (2000) or later. If this your only drive, dual
boot is out of the question.
Note: This is from a old memory, I might be off with some of the details.
--
Andrei "Ndi" Dobrin
Brainbench MVP
www.Brainbench.com
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