Windows 7 200MB Partition

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello all....

I wanted to start a dialog about this but I didn't want to do it in other people's threads. Not to mention; having one place to figure this out.

Seven creates a 200MB partition at the start of drive for the boot data. (If it's a fresh drive, with no other OS installed / connected)

Posted Here

I would like to know if this will affect how many "Primary Partition(s)" as opposed to "Extended Partition / Logical Drive(s)" are created in the normal course of creating partitions / drives. As I understand it; only three "Primary Partitions" can be created on any one HDD; any other partitions created must be an "Extended Partition"; which can't host the active boot files of the OS. This of course; in turn, limits the amount of drives that can host an OS on a HDD.

Where all this is leading: If Windows 7 creates this 200MB Partition as the first partition on the HDD; then that will limit how many (to two) partitions that are left to host an OS on that HDD. Now I know that few people dual boot; let alone multi boot on a single HDD.

I just wanted to hear what thoughts y'all have about this.


Later :huh: Ted

 

[x3haloed]

It's actually four primary partitions, but yeah.

multi-booting is just silly in my opinion. Plus who needs to dual-boot with Windows 7 on a single HDD, when you can just boot from a VHD?

 

[smarteyeball]

Example pics:

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

It's actually four primary partitions.

Hello x3haloed.

Not according to this.




Later :shock: Ted

 

[x3haloed]

lol, I don't see how that picture proves anything.


I'll post a VHD with 4 primary partitions if you like

 

[doubleblack]

This pissed me off, because now I can't use TrueCrypt

 

[x3haloed]

This pissed me off, because now I can't use TrueCrypt

why not?

 

[doubleblack]

TrueCrypt refuses to install WDE on any drive unless the Windows partition is the one that it boots from. Since Windows 7 boots from this 200MB partition, I cannot do it

 

[x3haloed]

TrueCrypt refuses to install WDE on any drive unless the Windows partition is the one that it boots from. Since Windows 7 boots from this 200MB partition, I cannot do it

That's unfortunate. I would guess that they will update it to work with the new partition scheme at some point

 

[johngalt]

It's actually four primary partitions, but yeah.

multi-booting is just silly in my opinion. Plus who needs to dual-boot with Windows 7 on a single HDD, when you can just boot from a VHD?

Yeah, multibooting is silly, especially when dealing with a *pre-BETA* OS - so if the OS goes south, you can still boot your VHDs, right?

feh. Nice try. Remember it has to be a Virtual PC created VHD - Steve has been trying to get VMs from others to work and thus far ain't getting too far. I am pretty positive that VBox images don't work at the moment....

Hello x3haloed.

Not according to this.

View attachment 1111


Later :shock: Ted

Windows only allows 4 primary partitions *or* 3 primary partitions and 1 Extended partition. Logical partitions are created inside of the extended partitions and are numbered 5+. Although the extended partition is not a physically accessible partition in and of itself, it is still (unofficially) using one of the 4 primary partition numbers.

This is the way it has always been - even in *nix. Create 4 primary partitions, or create 3 primary, 1 extended, and all subsequent logical partitions inside the extended.

lol, I don't see how that picture proves anything.

I'll post a VHD with 4 primary partitions if you like

Please do - and then create an extended partition *after* having 4 primary partitions.

And before you run screaming back to me about you were only talking about 4 primary partitions, please *re-read* what Ted wrote in the very first post.

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

This is a Windows o/s limitation. You can have 4 primaries, or 3 primaries and 1 extended partition ( green rectangle ).

Inside the extended partition you can create logical drives. This is a way of getting round what would otherwise be a 4 volume limit.

The only practical difference, really, is that you can't mark a logical drive as active.

Not sure how you managed to get your extended partition in the middle like that, Ted. LOL

You will find that if you try and shrink/ extend that green rectangle - you can't. You can only do that to the drives inside the extended partition. IMHO it's better to have the extended partition on the right in Disk management.

If that bothers you, you could delete it and repartition, or use a 3rd party app. to move/slide the primary on the right of it across to the left of it. Not sure how well 3rd party apps. handle repartitioning in Win 7, though. Has anybody been using any ?


Hope that helps

SIW2

Sorry, John - didn't see your post - must have been nearly simultaneous.

 

[johngalt]

He managed to get it in the middle because, as you see, the first partition is Vista - he shrunk it to create empty space, and then the extended was created in that said empty space.

 

[x3haloed]

Yeah, multibooting is silly, especially when dealing with a *pre-BETA* OS - so if the OS goes south, you can still boot your VHDs, right?

feh. Nice try. Remember it has to be a Virtual PC created VHD - Steve has been trying to get VMs from others to work and thus far ain't getting too far. I am pretty positive that VBox images don't work at the moment....



Windows only allows 4 primary partitions *or* 3 primary partitions and 1 Extended partition. Logical partitions are created inside of the extended partitions and are numbered 5+. Although the extended partition is not a physically accessible partition in and of itself, it is still (unofficially) using one of the 4 primary partition numbers.

This is the way it has always been - even in *nix. Create 4 primary partitions, or create 3 primary, 1 extended, and all subsequent logical partitions inside the extended.




Please do - and then create an extended partition *after* having 4 primary partitions.

And before you run screaming back to me about you were only talking about 4 primary partitions, please *re-read* what Ted wrote in the very first post.

You're right about the extended partitions. I was just saying that you can have four primaries.

I think multi-booting with a beta OS on a production machine is very silly. All kinds of things can go wrong when creating, erasing, and deleting partitions, dealing with a new bootloader, etc. Either devote an entire machine to testing, or make a vm.

lol, what's the problem with using Virtual PC VHDs?

Oh, and Quake sucks.

 

[johngalt]

The problem with using VPC images is that the hardware that VPC emulates - a friggin PIII, for crying out loud. VMWare and VBox both have the ability to natively emulate the same hardware that the host OS uses as long as the hardware (ie BIOS) supports hardware Virtualization extensions, which most newer machines do. Why should I be stuck emulating a PIII?

And if you have multiple HDs, multi-booting with a Beta OS is *not* silly - multibooting on the same drive *does* put that entire drive at risk, but for those of us with multiple drives, multi-booting is *definitely* an option.

RE: Quake sucks: IDGAF. The avatar is still kewl.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Ok y'all.

How would you go about creating a 4th primary as opposed to the 4th being an extended partition by default? When I created the 4th partition it "just was" an extended partition; I did not choose to make it so; I was not presented with a choice. This is why I'm asking these questions; to get this figured out.












Later :shock: Ted

 

[SIW2]

Hi kid,

Think you would need to use a 3rd party app. Afaik there isn't one that would be able to convert it so you would probably need to delete it before recreating it as a primary.

I got the Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 Special Edition from Computeractive magazine.

Just tried it out. I created a new primary partition, Ntfs, from some unallocated space. Both checkdisk and the system health report came up clean.

It appears to work fine on Win 7 x64.

I didn't try precisely what you want to do, but it seems capable of doing it :



I don't think that particular download from the mag. is still active, but you may be able to find it , or something similar on goole.

Hope it helps

SIW2

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello SIW2, thanks for the reply.

No sir, I didn't mean after the fact; I'm sorry I wasn't clearer with the question to start with.

I meant when you first start to set up the partitions from the time when you first install the HDD. Say you know you want to create four partitions total, but you don't want one of them to be an extended; you only want four primary partitions. My question is: is this possible with the default Vista / Windows 7 partition manager?

Thanks again for your time.








Later Ted

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

I have heard elsewhere that Vista, and therefore probably Win7,
won't give you the choice.

Afaik, during the installation, you could create 4 partitions - but the last one you create will by default be an extended partition.

The advantage is that the Extended gives you the option to create more volumes inside it.

If you want 4 primaries - after you have installed, use a 3rd party app. to delete the Extended and recreate it as a Primary.

Afaik, you should be able to use a Logical drive as a Boot volume though not as a System (active )partition.

Hope that helps

SIW2

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello SIW2....

First: I want to say thanks for all the help you've been with this.

I kind of expected the above reply; though I have no intention of re-partitioning the main HDD on this machine; I just want the info for the new build I'm putting together. I don't want to get stuck with the situation I'm in with the primary HDD on this machine. I just wanted to have the answers before I start.

Thanks again!








Later Ted

 

[Barman58]

Afaik, you should be able to use a Logical drive as a Boot volume though not as a System (active )partition.

Yep am posting this from within Windows 7 running in a logical drive on an extended partition

just for confirmation that it works