Primary or logical?

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Sun Apr 07, 2002 6:59 pm

Going to install a second OS on my C: drive, dual booting 98SE and XP.

I'm in the process of creating the second partition now, but am not sure if it should be primary or logical.

Am I right in assuming XP can be installed on either a primary or logical partition? Which should I choose?

Thanks

glc1 · Post by **glc1** » Sun Apr 07, 2002 7:09 pm

Not primary. C should already be formated as a primary drive.

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Sun Apr 07, 2002 7:10 pm

Originally posted by glc1
Not primary. C should already be formated as a primary drive.

Can't one HDD have as many as 4 primary drives though?

glc1 · Post by **glc1** » Sun Apr 07, 2002 7:34 pm

Originally posted by Humboldt

Can't one HDD have as many as 4 primary drives though?

Nope. I believe you are mixing (or associating) primary with OSes isntalled. There must be one primary partition in a system, and it doesn't have to contain an OS. If more than one partition is formatted as a pirmary partition, you'll have booting issues.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 6:44 am

I always make the second drive an extended.

AMPLIFRIER · Post by **AMPLIFRIER** » Tue Apr 09, 2002 7:25 pm

Originally posted by YeOldeStonecat
I always make the second drive an extended.

and then as many logical as you want in the extended....untill you run out of letters of course<G>

AMP

JustForFun · Post by **JustForFun** » Wed Apr 17, 2002 11:27 am

Can't one HDD have as many as 4 primary drives though?

Yes it can. Saying that having four primary partitions on one drive is not possible...is wrong.

What the drive CAN'T have is more than ONE partition at any given moment of the given partitions (primary, logical, extended) set to ACTIVE. You are allowed only ONE active partition at a time. This is the partition you would boot into.

To sum:

# of primary partitions allowed: 1-4 (max)
# of active partitions allowed: 1 (max)

JFF

twwabw · Post by **twwabw** » Wed Apr 17, 2002 11:52 am

Originally posted by JustForFun

Yes it can. Saying that having four primary partitions on one drive is not possible...is wrong.

What the drive CAN'T have is more than ONE partition at any given moment of the given partitions (primary, logical, extended) set to ACTIVE. You are allowed only ONE active partition at a time. This is the partition you would boot into.

To sum:

# of primary partitions allowed: 1-4 (max)
# of active partitions allowed: 1 (max)

JFF

Correct-o-mundo.

This is exactly how apps like Boot Magic can multi-boot to apps that require primary partitions. They can hide the other primary partitions if required, and set them as active partitions as required during boot.

Norm · Post by **Norm** » Wed Apr 17, 2002 6:55 pm

It is also possible to have 3 active partitions on the same system at the same time.
I have 3 separate HD's with active Primary partitions. I choose the boot device in the BIOS for IDE 0, or IDE 1, or SCSI
Each drive has it's own active primary partition.

The only drive with an extented partition and Dos drives in the extended is IDE 0 where I choose between 3 different OS's at bootup.
The other HD's are for backups, but can be booted after a quick stop in the BIOS to change the boot order.

There are many ways to setup a system, more than what I've tried so far too I'm sure. Most systems will only have one active partition, but the possibilty for more exists.