Partitioning for Windows 2000

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill
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B

Bill

I'd asked this question before & didn't get a solid answer, so let me try again.

If I am preparing a new laptop HD for Windows 2000. I want C: to be Windows 2000 & D: to
be data.

1) Do I:
- Make C: a PRIMARY partition, (Partition #1)
- then make an EXTENDED partition and create a logical partition inside that called
D:? (Partition #2)

2) If I do what I have above, here is the big question.
If later I create a new PRIMARY partition (Partition #3) after Partition #2 on the
drive, will I have

*CONFIG #1
Partition #1 (Primary) C:
Partition #2 (Extended/logical) D:
Partition #3 E: (Primary)

....OR...

*CONFIG #2
Partition #1 (Primary) C:
Partition #3 (Primary) D:
Partition #2 (Extended/logical) E:

After two days of researching on the Internet & Microsoft knowledgebase, I see some info
that says all primary partitions are assigned drive letter first, and then logical
drives in extended partitions are assigned drive letters. So, I'll have Config #2.

I also see info that says drives are assigned in the order found. So, I'll have Config
#1.

But I also see some info that says if I later create a new primary partition, Windows
2000 remembers my drive letters anyway. So, I'll have Config #1!

Most of the info I see over the web assumes multiple hard drives, and this is only one.

ANY help - PLEASE?

Bill.
 
Bill said:
I'd asked this question before & didn't get a solid answer, so let me try again.

If I am preparing a new laptop HD for Windows 2000. I want C: to be Windows 2000 & D: to
be data.

1) Do I:
- Make C: a PRIMARY partition, (Partition #1)
- then make an EXTENDED partition and create a logical partition inside that called
D:? (Partition #2)

2) If I do what I have above, here is the big question.
If later I create a new PRIMARY partition (Partition #3) after Partition #2 on the
drive, will I have

*CONFIG #1
Partition #1 (Primary) C:
Partition #2 (Extended/logical) D:
Partition #3 E: (Primary)

...OR...

*CONFIG #2
Partition #1 (Primary) C:
Partition #3 (Primary) D:
Partition #2 (Extended/logical) E:

After two days of researching on the Internet & Microsoft knowledgebase, I see some info
that says all primary partitions are assigned drive letter first, and then logical
drives in extended partitions are assigned drive letters. So, I'll have Config #2.

I also see info that says drives are assigned in the order found. So, I'll have Config
#1.

But I also see some info that says if I later create a new primary partition, Windows
2000 remembers my drive letters anyway. So, I'll have Config #1!

Most of the info I see over the web assumes multiple hard drives, and this is only one.

ANY help - PLEASE?

Bill.
Click to expand...

Your main question in your long and duplicated post appears
to be: Will you get a change of drive letters when you create a
new primary partition ***after*** installing Win2000. The
answer is: Probably not, because Windows assigns drive letters
to volume names, e.g. drive C: to volume
{55cc7240-6397-11da-bdfd-806d6172696f}. You can see
them here: HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices. In spite of this
there are occasional posts relating to drive letter changes. A
good strategy would be to create your partitions right in the
beginning.
 
:
Your main question in your long and duplicated post appears
to be: Will you get a change of drive letters when you create a
new primary partition ***after*** installing Win2000. The
answer is: Probably not, because Windows assigns drive letters
to volume names, e.g. drive C: to volume
{55cc7240-6397-11da-bdfd-806d6172696f}. You can see
them here: HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices. In spite of this
there are occasional posts relating to drive letter changes. A
good strategy would be to create your partitions right in the
beginning.
Click to expand...

Hi again, Pegasus!

Yes, my question is about creating my partitons right in the beginning.
 
These articles may help.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=51978
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=234048

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| And now, THIS contradicts EVRYTHING I've read!
|
|
http://v-com.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/v_com.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=756
|
| This says the first Primary is C:, then all the logicals are applied, then
the remaining
| primaries!
|
| I think I'll run some tests on an empty drive & see what happens.
|
|
|
 
Yep, this agrees with my referenced article.

My decision - my 100G HD will look like this:
1) First primary partition: Win2K (12G)
This will be initially formatted FAT32 - I'll let the Win2K install program format
it to NTFS
2) Extended Partition
First logical: 30G will be NTFS
(20G - Reserved/unallocated)
3) 38G - reserved/unallocated for later OS primary partitions

Notes:
- No two formatted drive partitions will have the same size, to help identify them from
other OSs & command line
- The order of primary partitions determine their drive letter
- The location on a HD of the Extended partition does not affect anything (!!)
- Win2K can set any drive to anything (thanks to Pegasus for the
HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices info
- No formatted partition can be hidden from Win2K, regardless of the boot loader
- I have rejected my single brother's recommendation that I create a separate partition
for, uh, pron.
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Pron

Hope this helps others. I'll format whilst I sleep tonight...

Bill.




...
 
- No two formatted drive partitions will have the same size, to help
identify them from
other OSs & command line
Click to expand...

This is usually handled by giving each partition a descriptive
volume label.
- No formatted partition can be hidden from Win2K, regardless of the boot
Click to expand...
loader

Maybe not hidden but many boot loaders can make formatted
partitions inaccessible to Windows (i.e. Windows cannot read
any data on inaccessible partitions).
 
1.) There's no need to pre-format. Windows 2000 setup will take care of this
for you. Choose NTFS during text mode portion of setup to avoid 512 byte
clusters due to conversion.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Yep, this agrees with my referenced article.
|
| My decision - my 100G HD will look like this:
| 1) First primary partition: Win2K (12G)
| This will be initially formatted FAT32 - I'll let the Win2K install
program format
| it to NTFS
| 2) Extended Partition
| First logical: 30G will be NTFS
| (20G - Reserved/unallocated)
| 3) 38G - reserved/unallocated for later OS primary partitions
|
| Notes:
| - No two formatted drive partitions will have the same size, to help
identify them from
| other OSs & command line
| - The order of primary partitions determine their drive letter
| - The location on a HD of the Extended partition does not affect anything
(!!)
| - Win2K can set any drive to anything (thanks to Pegasus for the
| HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices info
| - No formatted partition can be hidden from Win2K, regardless of the boot
loader
| - I have rejected my single brother's recommendation that I create a
separate partition
| for, uh, pron.
| http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Pron
|
| Hope this helps others. I'll format whilst I sleep tonight...
|
| Bill.
 
Bill,

In my experience, I prefer to make all partition is primary.

As I remember, maximum primary partition you can make on Windows is 4
partitions. If you need to create more than 4 partitions on the HD, you
should considered to make one or two partition as EXTENDED partition, cause
within Extended partition you can create up to 4 Logical partitions or more
(CMIIW).

Since you are having only 1 HD there won't be any problem the way you create
the partition but in the server there are so many considerations regarding
HD partition.

I hope this answering your question

Rian W
 
Bill,

In my experience, I prefer to make all partition is primary.
Click to expand...

I've considered this!
As I remember, maximum primary partition you can make on Windows is 4
partitions. If you need to create more than 4 partitions on the HD, you
should considered to make one or two partition as EXTENDED partition, cause
within Extended partition you can create up to 4 Logical partitions or more
(CMIIW).
Click to expand...

It's my understanding that you can only create one extended partition. Inside an
extended partition, you can create up to 21 logical drives (26 letters - A:,B: - 3
primary = 21 letters left)
 
Bill said:
...

I've considered this!


It's my understanding that you can only create one extended partition. Inside an
extended partition, you can create up to 21 logical drives (26 letters - A:,B: - 3
primary = 21 letters left)
Click to expand...

This is correct.
 
Hi, Bill.
It's my understanding that you can only create one extended partition.
Inside an
extended partition, you can create up to 21 logical drives (26 letters -
A:,B: - 3
primary = 21 letters left)
Click to expand...

Slight quibble: If you make NO primary partitions, you can have 24 logical
drives in the extended partition.

The only volume that MUST be a primary partition is the System Partition,
which holds NTLDR, NTDETECT.com and Boot.ini. A logical drive cannot be
marked Active (bootable). So for a single-HD system, the max would would be
a single primary partition and an extended partition holding 23 logical
drives.

I've seen reports that some users have also assigned the seldom-used letter
B: to a logical drive, but I've not tried that.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Currently running Windows Mail 7.0 in Vista x64 build 5384)
 
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