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Partitioning Data Drive
I'm adding a new 200GB data drive to an XP home machine. Should the
partition in the new drive be primary or extended? |
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Partitioning Data Drive
"mcp6453" wrote in message ... I'm adding a new 200GB data drive to an XP home machine. Should the partition in the new drive be primary or extended? It does not matter in the least. |
#3
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Partitioning Data Drive
Just so you have the complete picture and can work out how to partition,
format etc: Windows XP supports up to four partitions per hard disk. Windows XP supports two main partition TYPES: Primary and Extended. A primary partition is one from which one can boot up an Operating System. All four partitions can be designated as Primary [or bootable, should one wish to install more than one Operating System, such as XP, 98, Linux etc]. One primary partition at a time must be marked as ‘Active’ designating it as the one from which the computer will boot: in almost all cases this should be the ‘C-Drive’. One partition can be allocated as an Extended Partition. These differ in that they are not formatted with a file system or assigned a specific drive letter [‘D’, thru to ‘Z’]. An Extended Partition is then a dedicated area of disk space in which one can then create a number of Logical Drives. Logical Drives are similar to primary partitions in that they are individually formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter: thus an extended partition can have an unlimited number of Logical Drives each with its own drive letter, none of the Logical drives is bootable. Use for logical drives can be to assign a specific drive letter [logical drive] for each file type [word document, email, MP3] or on a computer with many users, one or more logical drive per user. Windows XP supports three file systems NTFS, FAT32 and FAT [the latter 2 being introduced with earlier Windows systems]. Of the file systems, NTFS is the most versatile and the newest, with a 32 bit address structure which gives it the ability to access the very large disk drives available now [200Gb drives generally available] and in the future. Limitations for each file system a FAT – only addresses up to 4Gb of disk space [Windows XP, 95 and earlier Windows versions only] FAT32 - only addresses up to 32Gb of disk space [Windows XP, Me 98 and 95 Second Edition] NTFS - addresses up to 2,000Gb of disk space [Windows XP] One would use a partitioned hard drive formatted as FAT32 or FAT should one wish to accommodate a dual boot system [running XP or an earlier Operating System]. Should one have Windows XP Pro, a further benefit of NTFS is that files can be encrypted. "Pegasus (MVP)" wrote: "mcp6453" wrote in message ... I'm adding a new 200GB data drive to an XP home machine. Should the partition in the new drive be primary or extended? It does not matter in the least. |
#4
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Partitioning Data Drive
BAR wrote:
Just so you have the complete picture and can work out how to partition, format etc: Windows XP supports up to four partitions per hard disk. Windows XP supports two main partition TYPES: Primary and Extended. A primary partition is one from which one can boot up an Operating System. All four partitions can be designated as Primary [or bootable, should one wish to install more than one Operating System, such as XP, 98, Linux etc]. One primary partition at a time must be marked as ‘Active’ designating it as the one from which the computer will boot: in almost all cases this should be the ‘C-Drive’. One partition can be allocated as an Extended Partition. These differ in that they are not formatted with a file system or assigned a specific drive letter [‘D’, thru to ‘Z’]. An Extended Partition is then a dedicated area of disk space in which one can then create a number of Logical Drives. Logical Drives are similar to primary partitions in that they are individually formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter: thus an extended partition can have an unlimited number of Logical Drives each with its own drive letter, none of the Logical drives is bootable. Use for logical drives can be to assign a specific drive letter [logical drive] for each file type [word document, email, MP3] or on a computer with many users, one or more logical drive per user. Windows XP supports three file systems NTFS, FAT32 and FAT [the latter 2 being introduced with earlier Windows systems]. Of the file systems, NTFS is the most versatile and the newest, with a 32 bit address structure which gives it the ability to access the very large disk drives available now [200Gb drives generally available] and in the future. Limitations for each file system a FAT – only addresses up to 4Gb of disk space [Windows XP, 95 and earlier Windows versions only] FAT32 - only addresses up to 32Gb of disk space [Windows XP, Me 98 and 95 Second Edition] NTFS - addresses up to 2,000Gb of disk space [Windows XP] One would use a partitioned hard drive formatted as FAT32 or FAT should one wish to accommodate a dual boot system [running XP or an earlier Operating System]. Should one have Windows XP Pro, a further benefit of NTFS is that files can be encrypted. Excellent response. Thanks for taking the time! |
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