Multiple Drive and Partition Question

glennc · 21 Feb 2011

Hello,
Back to show my ignorance. I have a c: Drive 500 GB Drive with the System Reserved Partition on it. A second physical drive 1 TB partitioned as E: and F: are used solely for backup. What type of partition/type should each of the four sections of the two drives have. System, Logical, Primary, whatever the hey else there is?
If your kindness extends to a minor explanation it would be additionally appreciated. I am wondering if this is the reason I have the Disk 0 and Disk 1 assignment intermittent swap, noted in a previous thread. Thanks for any help.
glennc

1Bowtie · 21 Feb 2011

Hi glenc

If you could post a pic of disk mgmt that shows how it's set up, system reserved is a 100mb partition that's put there when you clean install Win 7 it doesn't get a drive letter, C: os, then your 1tb drive is 2 partitions E and F which are primary partitions also and that is fine, you are allowed 4 primary partitions, but when your setting it up with the wizard there is the option to make an extended or logical partition, make sure you never make a dynamic partition they cause big problems. But a pic is worth a thousand words.

glennc · 21 Feb 2011

1Bowtie said:

Hi glenc

If you could post a pic of disk mgmt that shows how it's set up, system reserved is a 100mb partition that's put there when you clean install Win 7 it doesn't get a drive letter, C: os, then your 1tb drive is 2 partitions E and F which are primary partitions also and that is fine, you are allowed 4 primary partitions, but when your setting it up with the wizard there is the option to make an extended or logical partition, make sure you never make a dynamic partition they cause big problems. But a pic is worth a thousand words.

Howdy 1Bowtie,
How would I get to disk management to get the view. Having no idea of the differences between the types of partitions, logical, dynamic etc. I am more severely lost. Thanks for answering the call.
glennc

1Bowtie · 21 Feb 2011

Sorry it took so long to get back, but to answer one of your questions, go to control panel / admin tools / then disk mgmt. It will show you all your drives and how they are set up, drive letters etc. There you can create new partitions, change drive letters, extend or shrink partitions. Let me know when you get there if you have specific questions, how to and i'll try to answer as i can

ignatzatsonic · 21 Feb 2011

If I understand correctly, you have 3 partitions across 2 drives.

Normally, I'd expect to see C with these characteristics in disk management: system, boot, page file, active, crash dump, and primary.

The other two may just be designated primary.

That will work fine. You don't need logicals, but there would be nothing particularly wrong with having them.

Avoid dynamic like the plague.

You can think of extended partitions like an outer container that contain logical partitions inside--kinda like a cigarette carton that contains individual packs. But you don't need logicals in your situation.

You may or may not also have a small "reserved partition" of 100 mb or 200 mb. Leave it alone if you have it. Whether or not you have it depends on the exact steps you took when you installed Windows. It can be avoided at the time of installation, but if you have it now, I would leave it alone rather than remove it.

glennc · 21 Feb 2011

Hello to all,
Can't find the Disk Manager under Administrator tools in Control Panel. Made these following examples from Paragon.

Multiple Drive and Partition Question-capture.png

Multiple Drive and Partition Question-capture1.png

Hope they help you more than they do me. Also notice how the first drive is the 1 TB and the C: drive 500 GB is listed second. That is an old problem that maybe I might figure out the primary, logical, extended etc: thing.
Thanks Gentlemen
glennc

ignatzatsonic · 22 Feb 2011

Type disk management in the start button search box and you will find it.

I don't see anything wrong in the 2 pictures you did post. F is a logical partition inside an extended partition. You have the 100 mb reserved partition on Disk 2, which is your boot drive.

theog · 22 Feb 2011

glennc said:

Hello to all,
Can't find the Disk Manager under Administrator tools in Control Panel. Made these following examples from Paragon.

Hope they help you more than they do me. Also notice how the first drive is the 1 TB and the C: drive 500 GB is listed second. That is an old problem that maybe I might figure out the primary, logical, extended etc: thing.
Thanks Gentlemen
glennc

You posted a screenshot of Disk management in post 7 of
Strange Intermittent reassignment of Hardrives

How did you do that one?

ignatzatsonic · 22 Feb 2011

The drives shown as 1 and 2 in Paragon would presumably appear as 0 and 1 in disk management.

I've operated for years with my boot drive shown as disk 1 in disk management.

If you prefer it to show as disk 0, you could probably do that by switching just swapping cables, but I don't know that I would bother. I seem to recall someone saying on these forums a month or so ago that switching cables like that can occasionally cause problems.

glennc · 22 Feb 2011

ignatzatsonic said:

Type disk management in the start button search box and you will find it.

I don't see anything wrong in the 2 pictures you did post. F is a logical partition inside an extended partition. You have the 100 mb reserved partition on Disk 2, which is your boot drive.

Hello ignatzatsonic,
Well duh, on me!! Thought I was getting the hang of running from a standard user account. Disk Management did not appear there! Back as quasi-Admin account, runs just fine. See below.

Notice, as a secondary problem that this shows the C: Drive 500 MB as disk 0 and the 1 TB drive as disk 1.
Thanks
glennc