Issue with Partitioning

[Paras Wadehra]

Hi friends, I hope some of you will be able to help me!

I have got 1 physical Hard Drive, which has 3 partitions: C Drive, which has
Win XP on it; D Drive, which has some data on it and another partition which
is still unallocated. When I go in Computer Management by right clicking on
My Computer and selecting Manage and after that going to Disk Management
under Storage, there I see the 3rd partition as unallocated. When I right
click on it and select "New Partition" from it, it shows me a "New Partition
Wizard" in which it asks me whether I should create a Primary partition or
Extended partition? Please help me with this - whats the difference between
a Primary partition and extended partition and which one should I choose?

Anyways, if I choose Primary partition, further down the wizard it asks me
if I want to enable file and folder compression and also whether I want to
do a quick format or not? What should I choose here and what is the default
in Windows XP for both these options?

Please help me as I don't want to mess-up my hard-disk.

Thanks,
Paras

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[Guest]

Hi,

Follow this guide:

http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives_07.htm

Regards,

Tim

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Follow this guide:

http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives_07.htm

Regards,

Tim

 

[Rajiv Sharma]

Choose the Primary Partition (You can create upto four primary partition or
three primary partition or an extended partition)
Check "Perform a quick format"
if you want to enable file or folde compression on that disk "Check" second
option
othewise it is recommended to leave it UNCHECK.

Rajiv

 

[Winfield]

Please take my advice with a grain of salt - I make horrible mistakes
sometimes ...

It sounds like you do NOT have 3 partitions, you have unallocated
(empty) hard-drive space you want to use.

There can only be one ACTIVE primary partition whenever you boot your
computer. If you format your unallocated HD space as a primary
partition, I think it will be "invisible" to your WinXP OS! You won't
be able to use it for data files or such, File Explorer won't see it.

If you want to freely use that empty HD space under WinXP, format the
partition as EXTENDED (it will get it's own drive letter next time you
boot into XP).

Good luck,
Winfield