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formating partition


earthsfate

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Hi, i plan to format my computer again and this time i plan to split my primary partition before i format. When i go to format i want to format only the active partition with windows in it.

I have two questions.

This trick does work right? the partition i created in windows using magic partition 8 won't be formated along with the active partition right? I plan to backup everything on my second partition.

When i created the second partition i had two options .. to either make it a logical partition or a primary partition. I chose primary partition. would that work?

i plan to install windows xp pro sp2.

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it would be nice to create a partition where to install os and this should be primary. and second i choose logical. actually i have 3 partition created with partition magic 8:

1. primary used for winxp

2. logical ntfs called by moi media partition

3. logical ntfs called data partition.

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Your allowed to create 4 Primary Partitions on a physical drive (only one can be set as active)

Or you can create 1, 2 or 3 primary partitions & then create several Logical Volumes in an Extended Partition (but that can get silly after a while...).

Logical volumes in an extended partition are flakey at best, I do not recommend using them.

Either way if you format one partition the others are perfectly safe...Just make reall sure you format the right one (drive letters tend to change some times).

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...

Logical volumes in an extended partition are flakey at best, I do not recommend using them.

...

Why do you claim this?

I have had logical volumes in extended partitions on a number of machines over a number of years without any problems whatsoever.

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Why logical over primary? what exactly is the difference between logical and primary. I googled it and i don't quite understand it. Can someone put it in plain english?

A logical drive is not a true partition, they're are just a segment of an extended partition. The only reason to use an extended partition is if (for some reason) you need to segment a physical drive into more than 4 pieces.

Logical drives have a lower order of priorty in drive letter assignments, so if you running a multiboot configuration and add/remove an IDE device...you'll end up playing hell trying to figure out where your OSs went.

It's just simpler dealing with primary partitions as they tend to be a bit more predictable (drive letter wise) and if you only have one OS and need more that 4 partitions (/volumes) Dynamic Disks are a much more flexible (resize on the fly, span and no reboots needed) option.

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