Maximum number of primary partitions.

[John Doue]

It has always been my belief that the max number one could have on a
system expected to boot with Windows was three. I just read this in a NG
for laptops:

"For one, BootItNG (or BING, as it's often called) allows you to have up
to 250-some odd *primary* partitions (useful for booting different OS's,
among other things)."

Since, as I feared, Partition Magic has lost its magic since it was
bought by symantec, I have been hunting for a replacement. I bought
Acronis disk director but I have found it is very clumsy and limited in
its possibilities. So I read this post with a lot of interest. But is it
really possible to have more than 3 primary partitions ? and does any
one has a replacement to suggest for Partition Magic. I quickly looked
into BING but, on the surface, it appears to bring me back 15 years when
everything had to be done in Dos.

Regards

 

[Ron Bogart]

In

It has always been my belief that the max number one could have on a
system expected to boot with Windows was three. I just read this in a
NG for laptops:

"For one, BootItNG (or BING, as it's often called) allows you to have
up to 250-some odd *primary* partitions (useful for booting different
OS's, among other things)."

Since, as I feared, Partition Magic has lost its magic since it was
bought by symantec, I have been hunting for a replacement. I bought
Acronis disk director but I have found it is very clumsy and limited
in its possibilities. So I read this post with a lot of interest. But
is it really possible to have more than 3 primary partitions ? and
does any one has a replacement to suggest for Partition Magic. I
quickly looked into BING but, on the surface, it appears to bring me
back 15 years when everything had to be done in Dos.

Regards

I don't use it personally, but I have several friends who use BootItNG and
swear by it's capabilities. They say the learning curve is a bit more than
most others, but once you get used to it you will never go back to others.

 

[peter]

I dont know about the number of primary partitions but I have used BootItNG for
the past year creating partions without destroying any of the info on the HD.I
have used it to make partitions smaller,create new partion from that space and
add that space to another parition and I have never ever lost info on any of the
partitions that I have worked with.There must be a reason it works in
DOS.........because the damn thing works!!
peter

 

[Richard Urban]

You can have a total of four primary partitions per hard drive - period!
--

Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[CS]

It has always been my belief that the max number one could have on a
system expected to boot with Windows was three. I just read this in a NG
for laptops:

"For one, BootItNG (or BING, as it's often called) allows you to have up
to 250-some odd *primary* partitions (useful for booting different OS's,
among other things)."

Since, as I feared, Partition Magic has lost its magic since it was
bought by symantec, I have been hunting for a replacement. I bought
Acronis disk director but I have found it is very clumsy and limited in
its possibilities. So I read this post with a lot of interest. But is it
really possible to have more than 3 primary partitions ? and does any
one has a replacement to suggest for Partition Magic. I quickly looked
into BING but, on the surface, it appears to bring me back 15 years when
everything had to be done in Dos.

Regards

John:

As others have pointed out, BING is a great program. Although the
learning curve is a bit steep for some people, it's well worth the
investment. You have nothing to lose by trying it. You can download
a fully functional 30 trial copy (it fits on a single floppy disk) and
put it through its paces. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

What could be more simple than that?

 

[Alex Nichol]

It has always been my belief that the max number one could have on a
system expected to boot with Windows was three. I just read this in a NG
for laptops:

"For one, BootItNG (or BING, as it's often called) allows you to have up
to 250-some odd *primary* partitions (useful for booting different OS's,
among other things)."

The maximum number in the Partition table in the initial 'Master boot
record' sector of the disk is four; of which one may be an Extended
partition containing a chain of logical drives/volumes. That is what
you will see (at most) from a boot of an operating system

BootIT NG is a boot manager, which replaces the code in that initial MBR
and adds some more, which allows it to keep a separate table of up to
250 partitions. When you boot a particular instance in its selector it
can arrange to bring the set you want for that system into the
partition table for use

 

[John Doue]

As others have pointed out, BING is a great program. Although the
learning curve is a bit steep for some people, it's well worth the
investment. You have nothing to lose by trying it. You can download
a fully functional 30 trial copy (it fits on a single floppy disk) and
put it through its paces. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

What could be more simple than that?

I must say I am impressed by the feedback I am getting about BING.
Although I was at first taken aback by the apparent complexity
transpiring from the manual, I started computing in 1988 when Dos was
prevalent and I am not afraid of playing grease monkey !

What first deterred me from trying this utility is the fact that one of
the laptops I use does not have a built-in diskette drive; I do have a
USB diskette drive for it but although eventually I manage to boot from
it, the process is rather clumsy. But the BING manual does explain how
to setup a bootable CD so I guess I am running out of excuses ...Thanks
for providing the straw that broke the camel's back, here my laziness ...

This still does not tell me what the restrictions are in terms of
primary partitions. I always thought 3 were the max, so that one could
have an extended partition. Now, if I understand correctly, it looks
like the number of partition is not system dependent, but "Boot program"
dependent. Assuming this is confirmed, what about the restrictions in
terms of sector ? There would be little sense having this flexibility if
these sector restrictions were still valid. Can some one make it simple
for me and give me the bottom line here ? Although some friends say I am
looking for trouble by running more than one OS on my machines, this
have saved the day for me more than once. If for some reason, one OS
refuses to boot, I just use the other one to finish my work and keep my
clients happy and then I can research and correct this issue at leisure.

Best regards and thanks again.

 

[John Doue]

John Doue wrote:




The maximum number in the Partition table in the initial 'Master boot
record' sector of the disk is four; of which one may be an Extended
partition containing a chain of logical drives/volumes. That is what
you will see (at most) from a boot of an operating system

BootIT NG is a boot manager, which replaces the code in that initial MBR
and adds some more, which allows it to keep a separate table of up to
250 partitions. When you boot a particular instance in its selector it
can arrange to bring the set you want for that system into the
partition table for use

Thanks Alex for clarifying, to some extent, this mystery. Is this
processus what BING calls EMBR (E for extended, I believe). Although
everybody seems to love BING, this is scary!

 

[CS]

Thanks Alex for clarifying, to some extent, this mystery. Is this
processus what BING calls EMBR (E for extended, I believe). Although
everybody seems to love BING, this is scary!

I might also add to what Alex wrote - the tech support by the folks at
Terabyteunlimited is excellent. They have an active forum which you
can join via usenet posting (as this one) and also the author answers
E-Mail support questions.

I can't think of another shareware program that gives you so much for
$35.00.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Thanks Alex for clarifying, to some extent, this mystery. Is this
processus what BING calls EMBR (E for extended, I believe). Although
everybody seems to love BING, this is scary!

EMBR is the area where it keeps the extra information. If it seems
scary you do not enable the facility (I don't) ; it is strictly an
option and off by default. Frankly I find it difficult to think of a
case where it would be desirable, except for someone wanting to work
with a very large number of different systems: and even then I don't
see myself wanting more than three on any physical disk