I wanted to divide into five partition my laptop hard drive

Hi guys.
i have a dell 5010 laptop
I wanted to divide into five partition my laptop hard drive. But 7 did not let that make more than four partitions.
My hard drive capacity is 465 GB. 7 automatically maked partition 0 with a capacity of 100 Mb.
I built second partition 65 GB and the third and fourth with 125 gb.
In the end it did not make fifth partition with 165 GB
I've installed Windows then with diskmgmt.msc made the fifth partition but all of my partitions was changed to dynamic partitions.
after restarting windows it couldnt run and I cant remove partitions and fix them from 7 bootable.
now what do i must do?

you have to re-format your system partition Follow these steps

1. Boot your computer using your windows installation CD/DVD.
2. Select the Repair option in the installation setup option
3. Type the command: DiskPart.exe
4. At the DISKPART prompt, type: select disk C: or applicable partition to select the dynamic disk that you want to convert.
5. At the DISKPART prompt, type: clean to delete volume on the disk.
6. Then, at the DISKPART prompt, type: convert basic

Can you tell us what is the purpose of dividing your hard drive this way? It seems unnecessary.

A hard drive has a limit of four PRIMARY partitions on it.

When you create partitions, you can create PRIMARY or LOGICAL types of partitions. All partitions, primary or logical, are assigned drive letters by Windows. You can use DISKMGMT.MSC to reassign drive letters that have been previously assigned by Windows, to anything you like (except for the boot drive letter C which cannot be changed).

Normally, primary partitions are limited to one per drive and positioned either at the front or back of the drive. After that, all the remaining contiguous free space is allocated to another primary partition named the "extended partition", and inside of that space you can then allocate ANY NUMBER of LOGICAL partitions.

You can have multiple individually lettered primary partitions on a physical drive (consecutively placed), followed by one "extended partition" for the rest of the free space on the drive, inside of which any number of logical partitions can then be defined.

You don't actually see that "extended partition" which holds all of the logical partitions, but it's there and pointed to by the "boundary box" (which is like a partition table of contents at the front of the physical drive).

Best suggestion... don't use DISKPART. Use Partition Wizard (either installed under WinXP or Win7, or running from its standalone bootable CD) to do all of your partition work.

Just remember that unless you need a PRIMARY partition for a reason (e.g. a fresh install of Win7 on an empty drive, will cause a "system reserved" 100MB special primary partition to be created, as well as a second Win7 primary partition) you can allocate LOGICAL partitions to your heart's content from within that single "extended partition" which is one primary partition representing all the rest of the contiguous free space on the physical drive other than those allocated PRIMARY partitions.

You can even have NO primary partition on a physical drive, in which case the entire space of the drive is allocated to that one "extended partition" (i.e. a primary partition inside of which LOGICAL partitions are allocated). Then you can allocate as many LOGICAL partitions as you want, in that space which comprises the entire physical drive... i.e. inside of that primary-type "extended partition".


LOGICAL partitions are perfectly fine for most uses. You don't need PRIMARY partitions for "data".

And primary vs. logical partitions have other more complex considerations when you try to position them on a physical drive leaving free space before or after. Best recommendation: avoid this unless you know what you're doing.

And use Partition Wizard. It's as easy to use as any program you've ever seen, and will hide all of these complexities and considerations from you... and never let you make a mistake. Runs under winXP/Win7 or standalone from its own boot CD.

Layback Bear said:

I'm still lost; why 5 partitions. What is the OP trying to do.

Who knows?

Anyway, the problem is that he created PRIMARY partitions... not LOGICAL partitions. That's why there's any limit at all.

OP... please start over.

That first 100MB "system reserved" PRIMARY partition that you say is DISK0 is critical to Win7. It has no drive letter assigned by Windows, and you cannot touch it. It contains the boot loader files. Forget about it. It's not for you to think about.

The next partition is the Win7 partition, and you say it's 65GB. It is also a PRIMARY partition, and it's probably DISK1 and given the drive letter of C.

That's two of the four-maximum possible PRIMARY partitions, already assigned and unchangeable.

However all the remaining space on your 465GB hard drive (probably was really a 500GB raw, before formatting) can be considered available... to a THIRD PRIMARY partition (which has no name officially, but is referred to as the "extended partition"). This is the THIRD of the four-maximum possible PRIMARY partitions on a drive, but inside of that "extended partition" you can have ANY NUMBER OF LOGICAL PARTITIONS SUB-DEFINED.

You simply have to create them as LOGICAL partitions and not PRIMARY partitions. That way the single primary "extended partition" can hold any number of internally sub-defined logical partitions inside it, each one further getting its own drive letter (D, E, F, etc.).

To you and to the outside world, there is no real difference between the logical partitions and primary partitions... other than the fact that we really do understand where they are and how they got created. But they're all just drive letters to Windows and the outside world.

So, use Partition Wizard to get rid of those extra partitions you've got created. You want to go back to a "basic" hard disk, with the 100MB "system reserved" DISK0 (with no drive letter), and the 65GB DISK1 for Win7 (lettered C).

In the remaining space, just use Partition Wizard to begin allocating LOGICAL partitions of whatever size you want. DO NOT ALLOCATE ANY MORE PRIMARY PARTITIONS (it's a dropdown item... to create either logical or primary, and you'll select logical). The first logical partition you create will begin the process of utilizing the "extended partition" area inside of which all logical partitions you create will be housed.

Partition Wizard (and DISKPART, to be honest) understand all of this, but Partition Wizard is far easier to use and rely on.

Again, your problem was that you created PRIMARY partitions and didn't realize it. You should have been creating LOGICAL partitions (with DISKPART, or Partition Wizard) and you'd have had no problem whatsoever creating 100 partitions... but LOGICAL, not PRIMARY!

thank you for your guide

i want to have 4 partition:
c: 65gb
d:125gb
e:125gb
f:165gb

I want to be primary only the first partition and other partitions be logical.
will dynamic partitions create problem for me?

If it cant create any problem for me I'd prefer dont change it because I could run Windows on it