Partitioning

[dr d]

I am attempting to partition a drive using Vista's Disk Management and
can create three volumes, but when I try to create a fourth, it tries
to convert to dynamic from basic. What else can I do to create a
fourth partition?

 

[\NachtWacht\]

I am attempting to partition a drive using Vista's Disk Management and
can create three volumes, but when I try to create a fourth, it tries
to convert to dynamic from basic. What else can I do to create a
fourth partition?

Create it with Acronis Diskdirector 10.

 

[R. C. White, MVP]

Hi, dr d.

That's how it works in Vista. It caught me by surprise during the beta
because I've used multiple partitions for years. And I still do, but I have
to get there by a different path these days. The details are in Disk
Management's Help file, so I'll just "hit the high spots" here.

My typical drive configuration is a single small primary partition, plus an
extended partition covering the rest of the HD and divided into multiple
logical drives. This way, I can set the primary partition Active and put
only the startup files (NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini for WinXP; the BCD
and bootmgr.exe for Vista) on it. Then I can divide up the extended
partition into volumes where I can put each of the several Windows versions
I typically run, plus larger volumes for apps and data. I can delete and
recreate volumes as my needs change - and they have quite often changed. I
never used dynamic volumes until Vista, and still have only slight
familiarity with them. But Vista is big on dynamic volumes, and I think we
will be, too, after we climb the learning curve.

In the meantime, Vista's Disk Management will create the first 3 primary
partitions as in WinXP and prior. When we try to create the 4th, it
automatically creates the extended partition and the first logical drive
within that partition. If we want to insist on our own organization of the
disk, we will have to open an Administrator:Command Prompt window and run
the DiskPart.exe shell. This is a very powerful - and therefore dangerous -
utility (much different from the DiskPart command in the WinXP Recover
Console). If you start that shell and then type Help, you will see a list
of the commands available.

I just wish Microsoft had given us more notice of the change, instead of
waiting until we stumbled on it ourselves and got confused.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Mail in Vista Ultimate x64)

 

[Milhouse Van Houten]

So just to be clear: you're saying this forcing of dynamic volumes only
comes into play after you already have three primary volumes? If so, that
should affect relatively few people, right? I think most people organize
their disks in the way you described in the second paragraph: one primary,
one extended, and a bunch of logical drives within the extended, which I
take it is also not affected by this. Please correct me if I'm not getting
this right.

That's the way I've always done it as well, but as I'm about to move to a
new drive I've been mulling over any reasons to also go with a primary for
the OS volumes after the small "C" system volume (before getting to data
volumes, that is), and if there is a reason, I haven't found it.

For a minute, I was thinking that if non-active primary partitions are
supposedly invisible (I've read it but don't know if it's true), that it
might offer a way to get around XP's penchant for destroying Vista's restore
points, but it's too complicated and I don't know if it would work. I know
some third-party managers work with hidden volumes to solve this problem,
but I don't want to go back to them.

I was thinking that Vista's volume would normally be marked active, but if
you needed to boot into XP, you could make Vista inactive and XP active,
therefore rendering Vista invisible to XP. Maybe. Of course, you'd have to
be careful about the shifting drive letters, which is where it gets
complicated.

 

[R. C. White, MVP]

Hi, Milhouse.

this forcing of dynamic volumes only comes into play after you already
have three primary volumes? If so, that should affect relatively few
people, right? I think most people organize their disks in the way you
described in the second paragraph: one primary, one extended, and a bunch
of logical drives within the extended, which I take it is also not
affected by this.

I think almost all computer users go with the default setup installed by the
OEM: a single Drive C: covering the whole HD, except for a (probably
hidden) partition holding the OEM's proprietary stuff.

And I think most users savvy enough to organize their HDs themselves
probably also go with a single large Drive C:, or a few primary partitions.
I think only a relative few of us have used extended partitions at all. Of
course, we are the smart ones. Right? ;^}

You and I, with our one primary and multiple logical volumes, are not
affected by the new system on our existing HDs that have already been
partitioned by WinXP (or otherwise). But we will be affected when we try to
repartition an old HD or add partitions to a new one.

That's the way I've always done it as well, but as I'm about to move to a
new drive I've been mulling over any reasons to also go with a primary for
the OS volumes after the small "C" system volume (before getting to data
volumes, that is), and if there is a reason, I haven't found it.

I agree. I've always installed Windows/Vista into a logical drive, and have
purposely used multiple HDs, just in case one goes bad. For example, WinXP
x86 is on my Disk 0, Vista Ultimate x64 is on Disk 1, and various beta
versions (now deleted) were on Disks 0, 1 and 2. The System Partition MUST
be a primary partition, but any volume, primary or logical, on any HD in the
computer, can be used as the Boot Volume for a Windows or Vista
installation.

My "small" System Partition on each HD was originally the minimal 8 MB (yes,
that's an "M") when I was booting only Win9x/XP. Since it needed to hold
only NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini, which totaled less than half a MB,
even that was overkill, but that was the smallest allowed. And it gave me a
place to store BIOS binary flash files and some system-level utilities, such
as the original non-bloated DOS-version Norton Utilities, for emergencies.
I formatted this minimal partition FAT (not FAT32) for maximum OS
compatibility. It was always Drive C:, of course.

But Vista changes several things! For one, each "small" System Partition is
now 15 GB or more. Now it holds both the WinXP startup files, plus Vista's
BCD and \boot folder, and leaves several GB that Vista's Setup program seems
to demand. Nowadays, it is not always Drive C:. When we install Vista by
booting into WinXP or Vista and running Vista Setup from there, it reads and
respects our existing drive letters, letting us put Vista into D: or V: or
whichever volume letter we choose to be its Boot Volume. But when we
install Vista by booting from the Vista DVD, Setup assigns the letter C: to
whichever volume we install Vista into! Unless we install it into our
System Partition, that partition must be reassigned a letter other than C:,
probably D:. And Vista Setup won't know what letters we had already
assigned to other volumes, so it will assign them new letters, which we
probably will change later by using Disk Management. But we can't change
the letters for the System Partition or Boot Volume after Setup assigns them
without running Setup again. :>(

For a minute, I was thinking that if non-active primary partitions are
supposedly invisible (I've read it but don't know if it's true)

Nope. Not true. Active simply means that the partition can be used as the
System Partition. Only one primary partition on each HD can be marked
Active, but a different primary partition can be chosen and marked in
various ways, including by Disk Management. Other partitions, though, are
not invisible.

I know almost nothing about hidden partitions; I've never used them. I have
almost no experience with multi-boot systems other than the one built into
NT and Vista versions of Windows, but I've been using that for about 10
years (since Win95/NT4.0). I have not used System Restore, although many of
my friends say they have often been life-savers, so I haven't experienced
the "lost restore point" problems that I've often seen reported.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Mail in Vista Ultimate x64)

 

[Milhouse Van Houten]

I agree. I've always installed Windows/Vista into a logical drive, and
have purposely used multiple HDs, just in case one goes bad. For example,
WinXP x86 is on my Disk 0, Vista Ultimate x64 is on Disk 1, and various
beta versions (now deleted) were on Disks 0, 1 and 2. The System
Partition MUST be a primary partition, but any volume, primary or logical,
on any HD in the computer, can be used as the Boot Volume for a Windows or
Vista installation.

For anyone following along, the system volume is not the one with the system
actually on it, and the boot volume is not the one you actually boot from.
Thanks, Microsoft for the nomenclature (if it was indeed MS's fault), but
once you get it straight in your mind it's not too taxing, just flip what
would otherwise make sense.

My "small" System Partition on each HD was originally the minimal 8 MB
(yes, that's an "M") when I was booting only Win9x/XP. Since it needed to
hold only NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini, which totaled less than half a
MB, even that was overkill, but that was the smallest allowed. And it
gave me a place to store BIOS binary flash files and some system-level
utilities, such as the original non-bloated DOS-version Norton Utilities,
for emergencies. I formatted this minimal partition FAT (not FAT32) for
maximum OS compatibility. It was always Drive C:, of course.

We're practically the same person! It should be noted that you didn't
technically need the system partitions on the secondary drives, but as you
say above it's probably about being able to swap out Disk 0 if it goes bad
and being able to boot immediately from its replacement.

I also like the fact that the boot volumes never have the boot files on them
with this scheme, allowing you to blow it away if necessary. In the
situation in which the boot and system volume are one and the same, and you
have at least one other OS as well, it can get messy.

But Vista changes several things! For one, each "small" System Partition
is now 15 GB or more. Now it holds both the WinXP startup files, plus
Vista's BCD and \boot folder, and leaves several GB that Vista's Setup
program seems to demand. Nowadays, it is not always Drive C:.

I think I'm misreading you here, as you can't mean 15GB. My system partition
is 512MB, with only about 50-75MB of that used (the majority for stuff not
related to the OS), and I recall from the beta that Setup (boot-from-the-DVD
style) always stated that it required about 435MB (it varied from build to
build) on the system partition to install, presumably for the temporary
WinPE setup environment, which it absolutely needed to have on the system
volume. I remember having to scramble a couple times to clear up a few MBs
of space. In the future, I'm just going to make it 1GB, since I bet the next
beta won't fit.

But it's not 15GB. We have to be talking about two slightly different
things.

Nope. Not true. Active simply means that the partition can be used as
the System Partition. Only one primary partition on each HD can be marked
Active, but a different primary partition can be chosen and marked in
various ways, including by Disk Management. Other partitions, though, are
not invisible.

Figures. But it's on so many sites I wonder if it was once true, or true
with certain older OS's (Win98?) or possibly involving non-MS OS's as well?
Two pages I saw it on are here (undated, so they could be quite old):
http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/clean3.html
http://www.ahuka.com/other/partition.html

Separately, I've read statements that XP (and presumably Vista) has no
problem at all with multiple, active primary partitions, though FDISK
doesn't let you do that. I'm not sure it matters either way.

I know almost nothing about hidden partitions; I've never used them. I
have almost no experience with multi-boot systems other than the one built
into NT and Vista versions of Windows, but I've been using that for about
10 years (since Win95/NT4.0). I have not used System Restore, although
many of my friends say they have often been life-savers, so I haven't
experienced the "lost restore point" problems that I've often seen
reported.

Business and Ultimate keep file histories though, and that's what I don't
want to lose. I don't much care about restore points themselves, but file
histories are great to have.

 

[R. C. White, MVP]

Hi, Milhouse.

See inline...

For anyone following along, the system volume is not the one with the
system actually on it, and the boot volume is not the one you actually
boot from. Thanks, Microsoft for the nomenclature (if it was indeed MS's
fault), but once you get it straight in your mind it's not too taxing,
just flip what would otherwise make sense.

It's not Microsoft's fault. It's legacy from before MS even existed, as I
understand it. For details, see this KB article:
Definition of System Partition and Boot Partition
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/

This is the latest revision of this article, dated 1/31/07, but earlier
versions date back several years. It says it applies to WinXP, but it
obviously applies to all Windows versions, including Vista.

This latest revision discusses dynamic versus basic disks, and it further
blurs the distinction between "partition" and "volume". :>( In my opinion,
we should always say "System Partition", since only a primary partition can
serve as a System Partition, and saying "System Volume", while not wrong,
invistes confusion. But we also should always use the phrase "boot volume",
rather than "boot partition", since either kind of "volume" - primary
partition or logical drive - can serve as the boot volume.

And at least one statement in the KB article is wrong: It says that the
System Partition is always on Drive 0; my current System Partition is on my
Disk 1. This can vary depending on settings in CMOS.

We're practically the same person! It should be noted that you didn't
technically need the system partitions on the secondary drives, but as you
say above it's probably about being able to swap out Disk 0 if it goes bad
and being able to boot immediately from its replacement.

Yes. The additional system partitions are just my version of insurance. If
Disk 0 fails, I can set CMOS to boot from Disk 1, so that I can diagnose and
repair the problem on Disk 0. Or even have different Boot.ini files or BCDs
on different HDs.

I also like the fact that the boot volumes never have the boot files on
them with this scheme, allowing you to blow it away if necessary. In the
situation in which the boot and system volume are one and the same, and
you have at least one other OS as well, it can get messy.
Yes!



I think I'm misreading you here, as you can't mean 15GB. My system
partition is 512MB, with only about 50-75MB of that used (the majority for
stuff not related to the OS), and I recall from the beta that Setup
(boot-from-the-DVD style) always stated that it required about 435MB (it
varied from build to build) on the system partition to install, presumably
for the temporary WinPE setup environment, which it absolutely needed to
have on the system volume. I remember having to scramble a couple times to
clear up a few MBs of space. In the future, I'm just going to make it 1GB,
since I bet the next beta won't fit.

But it's not 15GB. We have to be talking about two slightly different
things.

Yes, it's GB. I'm sure it's overkill, now that the beta is over. But
during the beta, I tried several times to upgrade to the newest build and it
always failed because there was not enough space on "the system drive", or
some such ambiguous phrase that left me wondering whether Vista Setup meant
the System Partitiion or the Boot Volume - or some other "drive". I'm still
not sure what the minimum size for the System Partition would be to
"upgrade" to Vista; I've always had to do a clean install, because I've
NEVER got an upgrade to work. :>{

Figures. But it's on so many sites I wonder if it was once true, or true
with certain older OS's (Win98?) or possibly involving non-MS OS's as
well? Two pages I saw it on are here (undated, so they could be quite
old):
http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/clean3.html

This one says that, "DOS and Windows will only see one primary partition,
any other primaries will be invisible." This is not true now, obviously,
and I'm not sure that it ever was.

http://www.ahuka.com/other/partition.html

This one says, "I cannot think of why I would want to use more than one
primary partition on a single drive". He also says that, "only one can be
active at any one time. The other primary partition(s) are hidden." He
obviously was confusing "active" and "hidden".

Separately, I've read statements that XP (and presumably Vista) has no
problem at all with multiple, active primary partitions, though FDISK
doesn't let you do that. I'm not sure it matters either way.

I don't think Windows itself ever cares how many partitions are active.
This designation is important only to the boot process BEFORE any OS is
loaded. Disk Management allows us to change the designation, and shows us
the status, but does not use the information in any way that I know of. But
marking a partition Active simply changes one bit in the hard drive's
partition table so that the startup process (long before we ever see the
menu to select from Vista or a Legacy OS) knows where to look for the
operative boot sector. It might be possible to set more than one primary
partition active by using a disk editor, but I don't know what effect that
would have; I suspect that the boot process would simply use the first
active one and ignore the other designations.

Business and Ultimate keep file histories though, and that's what I don't
want to lose. I don't much care about restore points themselves, but file
histories are great to have.

I hope all this helps "dr d". We haven't heard back from him since his
original post. :^{

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Mail in Vista Ultimate x64)

 

[Milhouse Van Houten]

This latest revision discusses dynamic versus basic disks, and it further
blurs the distinction between "partition" and "volume". :>( In my
opinion, we should always say "System Partition", since only a primary
partition can serve as a System Partition, and saying "System Volume",
while not wrong, invistes confusion. But we also should always use the
phrase "boot volume", rather than "boot partition", since either kind of
"volume" - primary partition or logical drive - can serve as the boot
volume.

According to that article, the word "volume" should be used instead of
"partition" when dynamic disks are involved. I wish them luck with that,
since most people use the terms (along with "drive") interchangeably, and no
one should use the word "volume" expecting the audience to catch such an
inference. I know I'll forget this distinction myself by the next paragraph.

And at least one statement in the KB article is wrong: It says that the
System Partition is always on Drive 0; my current System Partition is on
my Disk 1. This can vary depending on settings in CMOS.

I suspect this is due to advancements in the BIOS -- it may not always have
been possible to boot from a second drive.

Yes, it's GB. I'm sure it's overkill, now that the beta is over. But
during the beta, I tried several times to upgrade to the newest build and
it always failed because there was not enough space on "the system drive",
or some such ambiguous phrase that left me wondering whether Vista Setup
meant the System Partitiion or the Boot Volume - or some other "drive".
I'm still not sure what the minimum size for the System Partition would be
to "upgrade" to Vista; I've always had to do a clean install, because I've
NEVER got an upgrade to work. :>{

OK, that must explain it: UPGRADE. I read you before to mean any Vista
install, but you're referring to upgrades of one kind or other -- something
I never did, not to XP and especially not to Vista (which was not
recommended because of beta-on-beta issues). I know for sure that a clean
install of Vista only requires that 435MB (give or take) figure free on the
system volume. When you don't have that much available, Vista setup tells
you exactly what it needs, otherwise it's pretty much a secret and Setup
just works.

As for the boot partition, if you're short there it'll also balk. I don't
recall the exact number it needs, but it's smaller than a lot of people
think, something in the 6GB to 7GB range. Not that anyone should have a
partition/volume/drive/disk/makeupanewword that small.

operative boot sector. It might be possible to set more than one primary
partition active by using a disk editor, but I don't know what effect that
would have; I suspect that the boot process would simply use the first
active one and ignore the other designations.

I'm not sure either. I think it's also doable with third-party partition
tools like PM.

I hope all this helps "dr d". We haven't heard back from him since his
original post. :^{

He's probably off doctoring somewhere.

 

[Milhouse Van Houten]

Breaking off on a different tangent here, I found something very interesting
and somewhat puzzling in Vista about this very issue.

As I understood the discussion below, Vista's GUI Disk Management console
now requires you to create three primary partitions before you can create an
extended partition, and I confirmed that to be the case. I haven't the
slightest idea why they made that change, however, particularly since it can
wreak havoc later with your drive lettering, since the second and third
primary partitions on the first drive will fall AFTER all of the logical
drives in the extended partition! It's nuts.

But anyway, this is where my experience parts with what's below: the fourth
volume I created, which was an extended with logical drives within it, was
NOT dynamic. I was never even asked to go dynamic, it's a straight-up basic
volume just like all the others. How did I get away with this?

Further, where is this rule described elsewhere on the Internet? I couldn't
find anything beyond the information about the three primaries, nothing
about a dynamic being forced.

 

[R. C. White, MVP]

Hi, Milhouse.

Vista's GUI Disk Management console now requires you to create three
primary partitions before you can create an extended partition,

Yes, but...we can use DiskPart.exe to create an extended partition, even if
there are NO primary partitions on that HD.

it can wreak havoc later with your drive lettering, since the second and
third primary partitions on the first drive will fall AFTER all of the
logical drives in the extended partition!

But we can use Disk Management to change any letter that we want - except
the System Partition and Boot Volume, of course.

My system has "just growed", like Topsy, over the years, and my logical
Drive M: comes before logical Drive H: on my 3rd HD. Disk 0's partitions
are, in sequence, G: (primary), F:, T:, U: and I:. As previously discussed,
I always use just one primary and one extended partition on each HD, with
the extended partition using all the space except for what the primary uses.
Thus, I've never had occasion to create a primary following the extended
partition, but I have no doubt that DM could do it - and assign it any
unused letter I like. Letters do NOT have to be assigned in sequence,
either chronological or geographical.

the fourth volume I created, which was an extended with logical drives
within it, was NOT dynamic
How did I get away with this?

I don't know. As I said, my experience with dynamic volumes is very
limited. Before Vista, my understanding was that dynamic volumes were kind
of like marriages: very easy to get into; very hard to get out of - and
subject to many surprises in actual operation. I've not needed them, so
I've shied away from them.

Further, where is this rule described elsewhere on the Internet? I
couldn't find anything beyond the information about the three primaries,
nothing about a dynamic being forced.

During the beta, a few of us complained about the lack of notice. We got a
good reply from a Microsoft team member, but it disappeared - at least from
my computer - after the beta ended and my access to those newsgroups went
away. Perhaps there is an explanation - on MSDN, maybe - but we just
haven't found it yet.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Mail in Vista Ultimate x64)

 

[Milhouse Van Houten]

Hi, Milhouse.


Yes, but...we can use DiskPart.exe to create an extended partition, even
if there are NO primary partitions on that HD.

Sure, but that should be reserved for special cases, not something common.

But we can use Disk Management to change any letter that we want - except
the System Partition and Boot Volume, of course.

*After* Windows is installed, yes, but I happened to be preparing the drive
on an existing system for use elsewhere -- it was a completely blank drive.
Imagine my surprise when on the new machine, Setup showed the second and
third primary partitions dead last in the order of things, when I actually
wanted them second and third. Afterwards I realized my "mistake" (using Disk
Management), but fortunately I had a bootable copy of Disk Director on hand,
which was able to *instantly* convert the second and third primary
partitions to be part of the existing extended partition (apparently it's
just a matter of flipping a bit or two).

During the beta, a few of us complained about the lack of notice. We got
a good reply from a Microsoft team member, but it disappeared - at least
from my computer - after the beta ended and my access to those newsgroups
went away. Perhaps there is an explanation - on MSDN, maybe - but we just
haven't found it yet.

I think at this point a definite possibility is that it was changed for RTM,
that a dynamic partition is no longer forced. That doesn't explain why "dr
d," presumably not using the beta version at this point, seemed to see it
happen.

The only variable in this is that it wasn't the only drive in my system at
the time, but I can't imagine why that would change the outcome. It's not
like I had dynamic volumes elsewhere, so DM couldn't say to itself "Oh, he
already has one, we're not going to give him another."

 

[koze]

Maybe with search there are a number of items listed about dynamic disks.

http://support.microsoft.com/search...&ast=3&ast=4&ast=10&ast=12&ast=9&mode=a&adv=1

Ko

 

[Milhouse Van Houten]

And if an article about Vista forcing a conversion of a fourth partition to
dynamic is in there, I didn't see it.