Frank Posted April 2, 2003 Share Posted April 2, 2003 I'm trying to understand partitioning. I think I understand a little of it--hopefully enough of it in order to ask a question in a way that you can understand what I'm talking about. I have Windows XP on my system with a 40Gig hard-drive. I'm thinking about buying a partitioning utility, partitioning my hard-drive and putting on Linux just to see if I like it. Of course, I want to leave XP on my drive. My hard-drive is currently partitioned so that I have Drive C: and D: Drive D: has the files on so that I can restore my system back to the way it was when I bought it. Here's the way I understand partitions--but I'm not sure if I'm understanding it correctly. Drive C: is my Primary partition. Since I also have a drive D:, am I understanding it correctly that my drive has an extended partition and that drive D: is a logical drive on the extended partition? My second question is this: If I want to install Linux, can I just put on another logical drive in my extended partition? Or is it necessary for Linux to be on a primary partition and if so, then with my partitioning utility, do I have to create another primary partition and put Linux on it? I know that's a lot of questions and I appreciate and thank you for your time.Frank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeber Posted April 2, 2003 Share Posted April 2, 2003 A quick answer: if you buy Partition Magic 8.0, it will not only help you set up your partitions the way you want with helpful hints along the way, but it will also give you the "primary/logical" information as well. You should have no problem. But I'll leave it up to the uber-geeks around here to exactly describe the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 Quick primer on partitions:x86 computers are designed so that the hard disk can be partitionned flexibly. You can have up to 4 primary partitions on a single hard disk. Thus if you have two hard disks you could have up to 8 primary partitions. Windows operating systems can only see one primary partition at a time. One of the primary partitions can be defined as an extended partion. Within the extended partition you can create as many logical drives you want if you were using Unix/Linux, but for any Windows operating system you are limited to D: to Z: or 23 logical drives, not counting any letters assigned to removeable drives like CD/CDRW/external drives, etc. All logical drives can be accessible from a Windows OS.Windows OSes can only be bootable from primary partitions (but, there are exceptions to this rule!) while Linux can be bootable from primary partitions or logical drives.You have a couple of options with installing Linux in your case. I would highly recommend you get yourself a reliable partition tool. Either the commercial PowerQuest Partition Magic 8.0 or the freeware Ranish Partition Manager. Both allow you to resize partitions so that you can make room to create other partitions. Do not use fdisk unless you are willing to install everything from scratch since fdisk will destroy your existing data!Your D: drive is a logical drive in the an extended partition. You will have to either reduce the size of your extended partition to add another primary partition or reduce your D: drive to add more logical drives, or you can even do both. It doesn't matter where the primary partition or extended partition is located, i.e., you could have 2 primary partitions followed by an extended partition, and then one more primary partition. By convention and manageability, if you create more than one primary partition, create them in front of the extended partition.Before you install Linux, be aware that Linux names partitions differently than windows. IDE drives are referenced by the path /dev/hda for the primary master disk, /dev/hdb for the primary slave, /dev/hdc for the secondary master, and /dev/hdd for the secondary slave. These don't have to be hard disk, but optical drives, too. The partitions are given numbers. So, if you have one hard disk and it is on the primary master controller slot, than partitions are name thusly: /dev/hda1 first primary partition/dev/hda2 second primary partition/dev/hda3 third primary partition/dev/hda4 fourth primary or extended partition (the extended partition is always hda4 even if it comes before the third or higher partition)/dev/hda5 first logical drive in the extended partitionand each logical drive is enumerated sequentially.If you have SCSI disk, the naming is /dev/sda. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 peachy --Thank you! That was a great primer; very concise and easy to understand. Have you tried out the Version 2.43 (172k) dated April 10, 2002. Beta by Muthu, on the Ranish Partitioner site? It says beta but it is about a year old. Is it really still a beta?BTW: If anyone wants to check it out, here's the link for the Ranish Partitioner:http://www.ranish.com/part/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ThunderRiver Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 Peachy's guide is quite comprehensive. I highly recommend you to have PartitionMagic 8.0 mainly because it gives you the ability to "resize" a partition. If I am correct, both your C and D are using up the entire 40 gig right? If so, you need to resize before your installation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Posted April 3, 2003 Author Share Posted April 3, 2003 If I am correct, both your C and D are using up the entire 40 gig right?Right. But that was a mistake when I said 40 gig. It's actually 60 gig. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ThunderRiver Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 If I am correct, both your C and D are using up the entire 40 gig right?Right. But that was a mistake when I said 40 gig. It's actually 60 gig. Well, doesn't really matter. You need PartitionMagic or other partitioning utility that you trust to "resize" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 Great primer, Peachy! The only thing I can think of to add is that I've heard that you should defragment your drive(s) before resizing your partitions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greengeek Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 I usually resize the Window's partition when I install Linux on a Windows machine, the Linux installer does it for me. As ComputerBob said, you should defrag it first.Joy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havnblast Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 Two cheers to partition magic, I have been using that over many years and it saves a lot of headaches with windows and linux. It is well worth the investment to get it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imranj Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 Dude pls hold on ........since u are a newbie in installing linux My first suggestion.......use drive copy or image or Norton Ghost to fully image yur harddisk and partion...and store in some air tight place.....not a joke ok, u will thank me for it. Second if u are using partition magic u are in safe hands, but before u go slicing scan all yur partitons for errors, as partition magic wont budge if it encounters some fancy file error's.Third get System Commander boot manager..and install it.......its more safe more compared to using linux distro's boot and Os loader.....Fourth if u dont want to go through any of those Fuss get Knoppix cd based distro which is just put it in and play, thats more safe 100% ....belive me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Posted April 3, 2003 Author Share Posted April 3, 2003 Thanks to everone for all the info. I'm going to have to take time and study everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 Ooooh, I just thought of one more tip. Before you install Linux, make sure you have a working Windows boot floppy. That way, IF it turns out that you hate Linux and you no longer want to dual-boot your computer with Windows/Linux, you'd be able to quickly and easily boot from that floppy disk and issue the DOS command FDISK /MBR (in Windows 98 - other WinXP may require a slightly different command)which would rewrite your hard drive's Master Boot Record (MBR) to its normal non-dual-boot Windows configuration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ThunderRiver Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 Ooooh, I just thought of one more tip. Before you install Linux, make sure you have a working Windows boot floppy. That way, IF it turns out that you hate Linux and you no longer want to dual-boot your computer with Windows/Linux, you'd be able to quickly and easily boot from that floppy disk and issue the DOS command FDISK /MBR (in Windows 98 - other WinXP may require a slightly different command)which would rewrite your hard drive's Master Boot Record (MBR) to its normal non-dual-boot Windows configuration. I don't think Windows Xp/2000 has any commands that let you erase master boot record.Instead, you could boot into Reocvery Console, and use commands likefixmbrto let Windows Xp rewrite the mbr with its own information (yeah to boot XP) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 I don't think Windows Xp/2000 has any commands that let you erase master boot record.Instead, you could boot into Reocvery Console, and use commands likefixmbrto let Windows Xp rewrite the mbr with its own information (yeah to boot XP)Good to know. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThorNogson Posted April 4, 2003 Share Posted April 4, 2003 Might I suggest something for when you install Linux. I recommend you don't let it overwrite the boot record at all. Instead, create a Linux boot floppy. I have found this to be a much safer option. When you want to boot into Linux, just insert the floppy, and if it's not there, Windows will start as normal...Suse 8.1 and Mandrake 9.1 both let you do this, and I guess the others would do too. In the past, I've had problems when wanting to remove Linux, and not being able to restore the master boot record, even by using the recognised methods.I definitely agree about using Partition Magic 8. I used it to resize and then create a Linux swap partition of about 500mb, and a Linux ext2 partition of around 4Gb. I've had bad experiences in the past with using Linux installers' own partitioning tools (one corrupted the disk to badly I had to reformat). They could well have improved with the latest distributions, but I'm not willing to take another chance! I agree with Imranj about imaging with Norton Ghost beforehand as well, just in case.Good luck :-)John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badcat Posted April 4, 2003 Share Posted April 4, 2003 I'd have to second the vote for Partition Magic. I've used it for a few years and have had zero trouble with it. Boot Magic is included with it and also very reliable. I've had Windoze, Linux and BeOS booting on one machine with no problems. It's not cheap, but works well and is fairly easy to use. The included documentation had a partition primer in .pdf format that will explain partitioning almost as well as peachy did .Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted April 5, 2003 Share Posted April 5, 2003 Count me as a Partition Magic believer, too, with one caveat: as someone mentioned earlier, it's very important to check your drive for errors before using PM (or any other partitioning software). I know from painful personal experience that, if PM finds a drive error during a partition resizing, it can lock up partway through the process, forcing you to power down. Upon rebooting after such a lock up, you may discover that you've lost the entire contents of the drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Posted April 7, 2003 Author Share Posted April 7, 2003 Thanks for all the feed-back. But, now I have one more question. It seems the more you read and learn, the more questions that come up. As I mentioned above, I have a 60gig hard-disk. I just bought the computer about 5 or 6 months ago. It is an HP computer. My primary drive is, of course, drive C:. Drive D: is a logical drive in an extended partition. I don't use drive D: for anything--it simply has all the files to restore my system back to factory settings if necessary. As soon as I buy System Commander, I'm going to put on another Primary partition on my hard-drive.I was reading an article from Smart Computing and it said that since the first primary drive is drive C:, then the second primary drive *has* to be named drive D:. My question is, since I already have a drive D, (and I don't think I change that in case I have to use System Recovery), how do I create another Primary drive if it has to be drive D? By the way, I also have a drive E and F which are CD Drives. Am I misunderstanding the article in Smart Computing? From what I've read, if I understand it correctly, all the drive letters in all the partitions and logical drives must be in a certain order.Thanks again.Frank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted April 8, 2003 Share Posted April 8, 2003 I was reading an article from Smart Computing and it said that since the first primary drive is drive C:, then the second primary drive *has* to be named drive D:. My question is, since I already have a drive D, (and I don't think I change that in case I have to use System Recovery), how do I create another Primary drive if it has to be drive D? By the way, I also have a drive E and F which are CD Drives. Am I misunderstanding the article in Smart Computing? From what I've read, if I understand it correctly, all the drive letters in all the partitions and logical drives must be in a certain order.Thanks again.FrankWell, yes and no. In operating systems that can actually see more than one primary partition at a time this is true. However, Windows 9x and earlier can normally only see one primary partition at a time; the others will be hidden and not get a drive letter. Still, you can hide the other primary partitions from Win XP/2000. Hard drive letter assignments are not static, but can change depending what operating system you are using and whether you've chosen to hide parititions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quint Posted April 8, 2003 Share Posted April 8, 2003 As an alternative (free):http://home.wanadoo.nl/geurt/download.htmlThis was the partition software used to multi-boot 53 OS's! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeber Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 Wow, all these wise replys. So much information. So enlightening. So serious.Well, now for something completely different.I recommend, for no good reason may I add, you partition your drive such that you can use every letter in the alphabet (less "B" for some reason). And you can't use your removeable drive letters, either. But that still leaves you at least 20 letters or so. Take the size of your hard drive (i.e. 60G), divide by 20 or wharever is your available numbers amount to, and the result will be the size of each partition. It will impress the heck out of your non-computer-owning friends when you show them how many "drives" you've got on your computer. ("...and Ralph only has 3 drives? Really? Poor sod") Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havnblast Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 20 3GB partitions woohoo! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ComputerBob Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 ...Well, now for something completely different... ("...and Ralph only has 3 drives? Really? Poor sod") Hmmm, a Monty Python reference AND a British idiom in the same message. Jeber, are you from the U.K. ?? (not that there's anything wrong with that). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeber Posted April 11, 2003 Share Posted April 11, 2003 No, but I used to watch a lot of Masterpiece Theatre as a youth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibe98765 Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 Partition Magic is over-rated, over-priced and lacks adequate and competent support. I finally gave up on Powerquest about a year or so ago.Instead, I'd recommend you check Paragon Hard Disk Manager:Paragon Hard Disk ManagerUnlike PM, it's an all-in-one package that includes a partitioning utility, drive image utility, encrypted disk utility, disk wiping utility and a bunch more for only $60 US.Among the many reasons I switched to Paragon was that PM couldn't adjust the cluster sizes on NTFS disks directly. You first had to convert to FAT, do the resize and then convert back to NTFS. That's not something I wanted to do with 7 logical disks! Does PM support this functionality directly now?Paragon's support is very good and they always answer email in a reasonable time frame with useful answers, unlike PQ's useless support.For me, the only real weakness with the Paragon bundle is that while I can image my NTFS drives, they are not able to restore the images from DOS. Paragon says they are working on this though. But I don't think PQ's Drive Image can do that either (correct me if I am wrong). That is why they recommend that the C: disk be kept in FAT format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 For me, the only real weakness with the Paragon bundle is that while I can image my NTFS drives, they are not able to restore the images from DOS. Paragon says they are working on this though. But I don't think PQ's Drive Image can do that either (correct me if I am wrong). That is why they recommend that the C: disk be kept in FAT format.The problem with Drive Image and NTFS is this. You can make an image of an NTFS partition and store that image on an NTFS partition, it won't restore. In order for the restore to work, the image has to be saved on a FAT32 partition. I found that out when I tried restoring an image a couple of months ago and looked up the error message in Power Quest's knowledge-base. So, I've turned to Ghost until I decide to revert one of my partitions to FAT32. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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