"John" wrote in message
news:ncNIg.2290$XD1.960@trnddc01...
Jonny wrote:
"stef" stef.bm_at_hotmail.removethis.com wrote in message
...
Win XP HE

Hi,

Just bought an external firewire hard drive.

I need to reformat and partition it properly and I have never done it
before....

Question 1) If I create an extended partition, after my primary, MUST I
ALSO create a logical drive in the extended partition for it to work at
all?

OR,

an extended partition does NOT need a logical drive and no sense in
creating one in the extended partition if I will not create several
other logical drives in it.

(I suspect I do need to create a logical drive in the extended partition
for it to work at all but not sure.....)

Question 2): Completely separately from question 1) I am led to believe
that while there is nothing wrong with extended partitions, they do not
perform as well or as fast, etc., as primaries, i.e. SOME performance is
lost. True or false?

If true, then should stick to making 2 primaries in new external hard
disk if no real need for several logical drives in extended partition.

An extended partition is a "container" for logical partitions, that's its
only purpose. In order to use the hard disk area with an extended
partition for file storage, you have to create one or more logical
partitions. Typically, such an arrangement is used for personal data
storage, not an operating system.

Whether to use primary, or an extended partition is strictly a personal
choice for your own data. There is no performance loss either way. If
you want more than 4 partitions, you have go with an extended partition
with more than 4 partitions within that extended partition.

External drives are meant for file storage, not a standalone operating
system.


That is a little misleading and MS centric. You can have up to four
primary partitions on an X86 drive, one (and only one) of which can be an
extended partition containing logical partitions. The 'logical drive'
thing is an MS convention and not at all accurate.

By the way its true that MS OS's must bootstrap from a primary (system
partition) but the bulk of the OS can be located elsewhere (boot
partition) even a logical partition if you wish. The mix-up in 'system' &
'boot' partition naming is an MS convention, not mine or what has been an
accepted naming convention since before MS existed.

John

I understand your less than specific words, and their meaning. However, I
believe this is XP, a MS product we're conversing about here. If this is
not the case, please specify.
--
Jonny