Logical and Primary partitions

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silverwolf0

Gawd
Joined
Jan 14, 2004
Messages
613
Okay quick noob question. I want to set aside a partition for music and movies and such separate from my operating system. I made on in partition magic and made it as a primary partition ntfs partition. What is the difference between making it primary as opposed to the recommended logical or extended partition? Should i change it?
 
The answer to your question could get quite complicated and their are a lot of details. In a nut shell however, a primary partition is just one chunk of a partition on a hard drive, and an extended partition is a partition to hold several smaller partitionas (logical partitions). Since there is a limit of 4 primary partitions, it is common practice to make an extended partition beyond the primary and fill it with logical partitions.

Here is an easy to read overview:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives_01.htm

Much can be found at wikipedia and on google searching for file systems and partitions.
 
Since you can put up to 4 on a drive, and most people don't make more than 1 or two partitions per drive, there's no reason to use logical and/or extended partitions. I don't like having my partitions tied to each other either. I prefer using two primary partitions, if I have to split a drive up.
 
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