Re: Partition Issue (Adding Vista x64 to Vista x32 1TB Drive)
- From: "R. C. White" <rc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 22:20:24 -0500
Hi, Richard.
Most of my basic education in hard drives started with floppies on the TRS-80. I started out knowing nothing about them, but that was in 1978, and nobody else in town knew anything about them, either, so there was nobody to ask. Trial and (mostly) error taught me a lot. The old SuperZap and such utilities help me learn how to read a FAT and directory, byte by byte - even bit by bit. I've spent days painfully editing corrupted floppy and hard drives. Lightning from thunderstorms often scrambled boot tracks and directories. I learned to mark the last several tracks on the HD disk as Used or Bad so that the file system would not try to put any files there, and then use Norton's DiskEdit or such to just bit-copy the first few tracks there; after the disk's critical tracks got scrambled and it wouldn't boot, I'd copy those tracks back to the front of the drive, and this often had it running again in minutes.
When I switched to MS-DOS in the 1980s, I used the original Norton Utilities, especially DiskEdit, and read the excellent user's manuals thoroughly. The original (pre-Symantec) manuals for Partition Magic were also quite instructive; I may still have some of those. Nowadays, I get the Resource Kit for each successive Windows version. They have usually included at least a detailed copy of the boot sector and the MBR, including the partition table, with a bit-by-bit explanation of what the various flags mean. But I've not found a good disk editor to work with the new file system (NTFS and later), so my knowledge of the byte-level structure is not keeping up with the new stuff. Other good references are the Inside Out books by Ed Bott and others, but they don't show actual pictures of these critical disk sectors. I've never been able to find and read an EBR (Extended Boot Record) on my hard disk. The books say that these are daisy-chained, so that each logical drive has an EBR that, among other things, points to the next EBR - but I've not been able to find the start of the daisy chain to start following the chain. Some day, when I get a round tuit, I'll try again
The basic partition table has to be very simple because it's only big enough for 4 entries and each entry is only 16 bytes. I've been using extended partitions for over a decade. My standard arrangement for a HDD is a single small primary partition to hold nothing but the startup files, with an extended partition covering the rest of the drive, with multiple logical drives. Those logical drives get created and deleted as my needs change. A few volumes are reserved for my data (photos, finances, etc.). Most of the logical drives hold Windows installations, mostly beta builds, of WinXP, Vista and Win7, both x64 and x86 versions. When a new beta build arrives, I just delete the volume holding the former build or reformat it to install the new build. Since that volume doesn't hold either the system startup files or my data, there is minimal disruption to my other volumes.
Sorry, I didn't mean to run on so, but I often do that. ;^{
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100
"Richard Urban" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:#t#K#H3#JHA.1340@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The best write up I have ever seen on partitioning came with Partition Magic 5 (I believe it was). Everything you always wanted to know (or maybe didn't) about drives and partitioning. The theory has not changed in many years. You can still have only 4 primary partitions and yes, an extended partition reduces that by one. An extended partition is a special type of primary partition that allows logical partitions to be created within.
If you would like Mr. White, I will email you a .pdf of the manual. It is loaded with tons of useful information that is still relevant today.
--
Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience
"R. C. White" <rc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:e1qIMH1%23JHA.3320@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxHi, Richard.
The semantics here get tricky, don't they? :^{
My understanding is that the extended partition IS a "partition", but not a "primary partition". It can't be assigned a "drive" letter nor formatted. But one or more logical drives may be created within the extended partition and each of them can be assigned a letter and formatted. So AricCougar's drives F, G and H are actually logical drives within the one extended partition.
And for even trickier semantics, I've suggested to AricCougar that he may need to "extend his extended partition" to make room for still another logical drive inside it.
Methinks all this hard drive terminology just "growed like Topsy" and today we are faced with multiple ambiguous definitions for "drive" and "boot" and "extend"...and plenty of other words. :^{
RC
"Richard Urban" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:Oe0ruF74JHA.1416@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThe Vista setup tries to create a primary partition for itself to install upon. You can only have four - you already have four. The extended partition IS a primary partition.
--
Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience
"AricCougar" <guest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1c80e5a053070a93f39ed7b6281e4d65@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Partition Issue (Adding Vista x64 to Vista x32 1TB Drive)
My 1TB drive is set up as follows:
C: Vista x32 IE7 + VMwares 300GB (Primary)
D: Vista x32 IE8 50GB (Primary)
E: XP IE6 50GB (Primary)
F: XP IE7 50GB (Extended)
G: XP IE8 50GB (Extended)
H: Win7 IE8 50GB (Extended)
Unallocated 60GB
I need to put a new Vista x64 in 50GB of the remaining Unallocated
space but keep getting this error when trying to partition/format it:
"Disk Management: You cannot create a volume in this unallocated space
because the disk already contains the maximum number of partitions."
I understand that we only get 4 primary partitions. How can i add this
unallocated space to the Extended Partition, and thereby make a
partition within it to load Vista x64 to boot up like all the others?
Appreciate any quick ideas. Thanks.
--
AricCougar
.
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- From: R. C. White
- Re: Partition Issue (Adding Vista x64 to Vista x32 1TB Drive)
- From: Richard Urban
- Re: Partition Issue (Adding Vista x64 to Vista x32 1TB Drive)
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