What is the difference between Primary Partition and Extended Partition

[hon123456]

Dear All,

In win2000, I can set the partition to Primary or Extended. So please
suggest what is the difference between Primary and Secondary Partition. And
which one should I used it?

Thanks for your kindly attention.

 

[Enkidu]

Dear All,

In win2000, I can set the partition to Primary or Extended. So please
suggest what is the difference between Primary and Secondary Partition. And
which one should I used it?

In Windows 2000/XP you can only have 1 primary partition and three
extended partitions. Some non-Windows OSes can have up to 4 primary
partitions. An extended partition can have logical partitions within
it.

You can't format an extended partition - you first have to create
logical partition within it.

The above rules are convention used by almost all OSes. Windows has
added the dynamic disk, which has volumes and not partitions.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Guest]

hi since you are using win2000 may be it wont differ for you a lot but if you
had used win98 or win95 , you cant install OS (win98 or win95) until you have
one primary partition

you can win2000 setup and it will ask you how many partitions you need , you
can create or delete , any partition

or you can use the fdisk utility that is supported by DOS but you need a
startup disk or system disk

technically I m not sure , but the primary disks are allocated from the
outer cylinder of the hard disk so their access by the machine will be faster
and will give better performance , so its good to install the OS on primary
partition i think

I advise you the following : if you have a harddisk of 30 GB, make 10 Gb
primary partition (lets say C drice) and the 20 gb EXTENDED PARTITION , MAKE
TWO LOGICAL PARTITIONS D AND E IN THE EXTENDED PARTITION AREA

HOPE TO BE HELPFUL

REGARDS
YANAL

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

In Windows 2000/XP you can only have 1 primary partition and three
extended partitions. Some non-Windows OSes can have up to 4 primary
partitions.

.. . . and so can Windows! On the other hand, Windows can never
have more than one extended partition.

Windows allows you up to four partitions. One of them may be
an extended partition; the other ones must be primary ones.

The extended partition can have many logical drives.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Dear All,

In win2000, I can set the partition to Primary or Extended.
So
please suggest what is the difference between Primary and Secondary
Partition. And which one should I used it?

Thanks for your kindly attention.

1) A Primary partition can be made bootable; an Extended partition
cannot.

2) A Primary partition can contain only one logical drive; an
Extended partition can contain as many logical drives as you like,
limited only by the number of available drive letters.

Specifically, from WinXP's Help & Support's Glossary:

PRIMARY PARTITION. A type of partition that you can create on basic
disks. A primary partition is a portion of a physical disk that
functions as though it were a physically separate disk. On basic
master boot record (MBR) disks, you can create up to four primary
partitions on a basic disk, or three primary partitions and an
extended partition with multiple logical drives. On basic GPT disks,
you can create up to 128 primary partitions. Primary partitions are
also known as volumes.

EXTENDED PARTITION. A type of partition that you can create only on
basic master boot record (MBR) disks. Extended partitions are useful
if you want to create more than four volumes on a basic MBR disk.
Unlike primary partitions, you do not format an extended partition
with a file system and then assign a drive letter to it. Instead, you
create one or more logical drives within the extended partition. After
you create a logical drive, you format it and assign it a drive
letter. An MBR disk can have up to four primary partitions, or three
primary partitions, one extended partition, and multiple logical
drives.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Bruce Chambers]

On 2 Oct 2004 23:24:55 -0700, (e-mail address removed) (hon123456)
wrote:

Not quite correct, I'm afraid.

On basic master boot record (MBR) disks, you can create up to four
primary partitions on a basic disk, or three primary partitions and an
extended partition with multiple logical drives.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Rob Stow]

On 2 Oct 2004 23:24:55 -0700, (e-mail address removed) (hon123456)
wrote:


In Windows 2000/XP you can only have 1 primary partition and three
extended partitions. Some non-Windows OSes can have up to 4 primary
partitions.

Absolutely incorrect.

W2K, W2K3, XP, and NT, all allow either 4 primary
partitions or 3 primary partitions and one extended
partition.

For example, on one of my hard drives at home I
currently have 3 primary partitions and 1 extended
while on the other drive I have 2 primary and 1
extended. All partitions are accessible from every
version of Windows I use - W2K, NT4, XP, W2K3 - as
well as from Linux.

 

[hon123456]

thanks for you all