Max number of partitions in a hard disk

Hi all,

What is the maximum number of partitions can be made in an HDD?.I have bought a new 80GB HD.How many number of partition maximum?.Is it any restricion?.I have followed WinXP disk management tool and that tool says that only 3 basic and one extended partition can be created,But i need more partitions.

If i use dual boot(maybe more),WinXP and Linux,suppose i am creating 4 partitions for windows and 4 for linux,is it permissible?.What happen if i do so?.

I am using NTFS file system with WinXP with 4 partitions now,and i need to install linux without deleting any partition in winXP.

Anyone with good BOOT knowledge?.

Thanks,

Ok your right, you may only have up tp to three primary partitions on a drive with an extended partion.


First Option:To DUAL BOOT XP/LINUX you may want to chop you hard drive into equal chunks. I think linux comes with this ability but you may want to use other third party tools eg;system commander 7 by VCOM.

Second Option: Instal XP on a 10gig primary partion then use disk manager to create another 10gig volume on which to instal Linux.

Now you have 60gigs left you can create another two 30gig volumes or four 15gig volumes or however you want to manage these new volumes.

hope this helps

Thanks for ur reply,

But strangly,

Now i am having 4 partitions in ONE Hard Drive.I did it unknowingly.then somebody told me abt the restrictions.But it workd cool.

Now,

I am having 2 Windows installations in the HDD.That is,WinXP and Win2000 prof.

I am having 2 other partitions for storing data,ie,total 4 partitions.

Is it detrimental?.Can i install Linux over it?.

Thanks,
Dav

Theoretically speaking, 1 drive seems to have up to 255 partitions. Even primary ones, such a trick seems to be in preparation or half done by some 3rd party utilities.

However, practically speaking, as to standard Linux kernel settings (changeable perhaps according to distro?), it is allowed up to 15 for one drive.

1+1+1+1(=11) = 15 <---(oO;?(Somewhat strange, but usually seems thus limited?)

Linux can be set extended ones, but XP's disk manager seems to be pretty stupid in the teeth of its magnificence. So that any trouble may occur to its configuration.

For my part, I want to advise you to prepare one more drive. If you want to do it by all means, first you'd better select light one as Basiclinux which is very flexible considerring maintenance and very apt for any experiment. Heavy distro is itself problematic even to install only.

Thread moved.

I also think on ur way.But,

Windows disk management tool says that ONLY 4 partitions can be created in ONE HDD.Either 3 primary partitions and one extended partition OR 4 primary partition.

But ANY NUMBER of partitions can be made in extended partition(inside extended partition,any number of logical partitition can be created).They are called LOGICAL DRIVE.But only 4 BASIC partitions.

Bit confusing,But i need good insights in these topic.



I have now changed my partiotions just now,now it looks like this,

2 primary partitions for 2 Windows installations.(C and G)
1 Extended partition which holds 2 logical partitions inside it.(E and F,(D is CD Drive))

I think linux installs in Extended partition.Can i install Linux in my HDD now?.

Thanks,

Thank you for crediting me with those comments

(^^;?(Anytime you can do it.)

Max numbers relies on OS limitation. For example, they say Recent Windows can have any numbers of drives in Extended. But you must assign them drive letters. As a result of which, you cannot have the numbers over alphabets. All things is thus limited. Linux limit itself the number 15 for some reasons. Mac probably have now 6.

Also DOS fdisk couldn't spit the drive into 4 primarys, but could recognize 4 which is made by Linux or others.

In this way, there are Hardware limitations and Software ones at least. And each ones would have also multiple limitations.

When you can split extended into 15, I don't know how one of Linux regard it as.

Dear Megumi,

Consider these scenarios,

1)Windows disk management tool says that ONLY 4 partitions can be created in ONE HDD.
2)Windows disk management tool says that ONLY ONE extended partition in ONE hard disk.But any number of partitions can be created in it.
3)I have now 2 primary partitions and ONE extended partition.
4)My extended partition consists 20 GB.And i have made 2 logical drives in it.E and F.each partition consists 10 GB.
5)So at present,my extended partition does'nt have free space for MORE logical drives.
6)I have ONE primary partition LEFT uncreated.

Now the questien,

Can i install LINUX?.if so,may i encounter any probloms in HDD??

Thanks for so-far help and hopes more help,

(^^;?(Linux's fdisk is so forceful that it can see whole your disk and delete & create NTFS partition as well as many others.)

When you have already used up 80Gb, you would have to delete one partition and create again by Linux fdisk. At least, Linux necessitates two partitions ROOT and SWAP. It can be done during Install process or by some FD Linux using fdisk independently. That fdisk forceful means that it can erase out them all or other. Then Installer put lilo or grub, Linux bootloader, in Master Boot Record area. This is supposed to invoke NTloader or Linux. On this occasion, any misoperation can cause the worst thing naturally. At the least, you'll find you can't boot any of it, that's it, at its most you can boot Linux only, that means XP is gone.

So much so that, you'd better or must take minimum backup beforehand. Once Installer begins and go that far, you would not be able to stop it unless you do it manually. Any installer's mistake can make any critical things. (^^;(I think it's All Right, but don't forget Linux is No Warranty FreeWare.)

Whatever distributions you select, there should be full instruction of Installation. Read it well. Don't give it up due to a few fail. After Installation again, many things are waiting for you.

First Question: How much disk space do you have left?

Second Question: What type of file system dose Linux use?

Megumi,Thanks for ur good advice.

First Question: How much disk space do you have left?

10GB left


Second Question: What type of file system dose Linux use?

Linux dont use NTFS for sure.Something other,EXT i think.That dows'nt matter.I got 10GD FREE space without any kind of FORMATTING.

So LINUX can create any kind of FILE SYSTEM in it.

But my doubt is,is'it 'll be safe with my Hard disk??.Concider the scenarios i have specified above.

Even though you say quote: I think linux installs in Extended partition.Can i install Linux in my HDD now?.un-quote.

An operating system will only boot from a primary partition.

I would strongly insist using ntfs when loading Linux and as suggested above backup critical data before proceeding.

This is what I understand...

In windows env... XP for example, you can create max of 4 primary partitions or 3 primary partition and 1 extended partitions with lots of logical partitions as long as you still have a drive letter for it. Not very sure in Linux how many partitions it can sustain though.

Back to David's question, he currently have 2 primary partitions and 1 extended partition with 2 logical partitions that have fully used the extended partition.. right? He then questioned whether he can still install Linux safely or not as there is one more partition available to be created and (i assumed) lots more disk space (well.. he mentioned 10GB left).

The short answer that as far as I know... and from my experience is... he can't install linux on his machine. This is because Linux need at least 2 partitions (one for / and one more for swap). He has only one partition left to spare (well... generally. Based on Windows disk management limitation)

What you can do to be able to install linux is to increase the size of the extended partitions to accommodate more logical drive (either use up all the disk space left or keep some to leave room for another primary partition).

Then after that I think you are quite safe to venture forth.

Another question that has been raised is what type of fs does a linux used?... well depends... lots of choices... but common ones are ext2, ext3 and reiserfs (ext3 and reiserfs supports journalling... what they are for can be found in various other threads)

My personal advice:

Create another primary partition to be used as swap... say 256-512 MB.
Increase the size of the extended partition to fill up the rest of the disk.
Create another logical partition or a number of logical partitions (depending on how you want to set up your linux partitions). Leave some for windows partition for the future if you wish.
Install linux on the created partitions.
To boot the linux... there are lots of multiboot mechanism that you can choose. But try to avoid solutions that will touch your MBR... Windows hate it even though linux don't really care. lots of tutorials on the net on how to do this.

Hope it helps...
cheers.

The partition table is what dictates the max number of partitions, so it depends on the type of partition table but for a typical PC the partion table is in the MBR. There is room in the standard MBR table for 4 partition records. The standard MBR uses one sector (512 bytes) and holds MBR partition table and some bootstrap code. To get around this limit there is Extended Partitions and LBRs (Logical Boot Records). LBRs