Tricks For Disk Partitions

* Primary Partitions, Extended Partitions and Logical Partitions
A hard disk can have a maximum of only 4 partitions, which are called PRIMARY PARTITIONS. This limit was thought to be sufficient in the early days of the PC. To go over this limit, in place of a primary partition, a special kind of partition called EXTENDED PARTITION is used. Inside this EXTENDED PARTITION, any number of smaller partitions called LOGICAL PARTITIONS can be created.

* Multiple OS and partitions: Some people recommend just one primary partition and the rest inside an extended partition. But, some OS like the Linux require a primary partition for proper booting up. Others, such as Windows 2000 will be happy to get installed in a logical partition while Windows 95/98/Me installs in the first primary partition.

* My recommendation is two primary partitions (one for Win 9x/Me and one for Linux) with the rest inside an extended partition.

* Partitioning tool: Windows 9x/Me supplies a partition tool called FDISK. It does not recognize partitions created by Linux installations. So, use something like Ranish Partition Manager.

* Boot loader: If you have multiple operating systems, you might want to use a GUI-based boot loader such as Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL)