Creating more than 4 partitions


  1. dfs4
    Posts : 205
    Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit 7600 Multiprocessor Free
       New #1

    Creating more than 4 partitions


    I have 3 primary and logical drives on my HD. is it possible to create one more extended partition via diskpart in cmd? or through any other method?
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  3. chuckr
    Posts : 1,112
    XP_Pro, W7_7201, W7RC.vhd, SciLinux5.3, Fedora12, Fedora9_2x, OpenSolaris_09-06
       New #2

    dfs said:
    I have 3 primary and logical drives on my HD. is it possible to create one more extended partition via diskpart in cmd? or through any other method?
    The "rules" are:

    1. Four partitions maximum, period.

    2. You can have 'Primary" and "Extended" type of partitions.

    3. An Extended partition can "hold" other partitions. Primary cannot.

    4. You have to have "free space" or unused space to create a partition.

    (A 'typical' configuration could be: 3 Primaries and 1 Extended (holding others)).

    The reason for this is because the Master Boot Record on your HDD only has 4 entries in the Partition table, like everybody else.

    Each of the 4 entries has the capability to "point" to an executable Boot sector.

    The 'lucky' entry that gets booted is the one with the 'Active' bit set.
    Only 1 of the 4 can have an Active bit set.

    Windows 7 has the capability to "shrink" a partition, via 'diskpart' (Cmd line) and/or via 'Disk Management' (GUI).
    This will (hopefully) give you the 'free space' that you need to create a new partition.
    I'm sure there's tutorials showing each, on SF...

    Good luck...
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