A maximum of four partitions can be placed on any hard disk. These are sometimes called primary partitions. The limitation of four is one that is imposed on the system by the way that the master boot record is structured.

Windows 9x won't recognize the other primary partitions. Generally, you use multiple primary partitions for different operating systems.

Only one partition may be designated, at any given time, as active. That partition will be used for booting the system. See here for more on active partitions and switching active status between partitions.

DOS (and the operating systems that depend on it for booting, which includes all consumer Windows operating systems) will only recognize the active primary partition. Any other primary partitions will be ignored.

Answered by Ni .. , an ibibo Master, at 3:32 PM on July 12, 2008

A maximum of four partitions can be placed on any hard disk. These are sometimes called primary partitions. The limitation of four is one that is imposed on the system by the way that the master boot record is structured.

Windows 9x won't recognize the other primary partitions. Generally, you use multiple primary partitions for different operating systems.

Only one partition may be designated, at any given time, as active. That partition will be used for booting the system. See here for more on active partitions and switching active status between partitions.

DOS (and the operating systems that depend on it for booting, which includes all consumer Windows operating systems) will only recognize the active primary partition. Any other primary partitions will be ignored.

Answered by .... ..... , an ibibo Master, at 5:15 AM on July 12, 2008

A maximum of four partitions can be placed on any hard disk. These are sometimes called primary partitions. The limitation of four is one that is imposed on the system by the way that the master boot record is structured.

Windows 9x won't recognize the other primary partitions. Generally, you use multiple primary partitions for different operating systems.

Only one partition may be designated, at any given time, as active. That partition will be used for booting the system. See here for more on active partitions and switching active status between partitions.

DOS (and the operating systems that depend on it for booting, which includes all consumer Windows operating systems) will only recognize the active primary partition. Any other primary partitions will be ignored.

Answered by Yash , an ibibo Master, at 1:31 PM on July 04, 2008

A maximum of four partitions can be placed on any hard disk. These are sometimes called primary partitions. The limitation of four is one that is imposed on the system by the way that the master boot record is structured.

Windows 9x won't recognize the other primary partitions. Generally, you use multiple primary partitions for different operating systems.

Only one partition may be designated, at any given time, as active. That partition will be used for booting the system. See here for more on active partitions and switching active status between partitions.

DOS (and the operating systems that depend on it for booting, which includes all consumer Windows operating systems) will only recognize the active primary partition. Any other primary partitions will be ignored.

One of the four partitions may be designated as an extended DOS partition. This partition may then be subdivided into multiple logical partitions. This is the way that two or more logical DOS volumes can be placed on a single hard disk.

Answered by Gyan Singh , an ibibo Master, at 8:19 PM on June 27, 2008

well, A maximum of four partitions can be placed on any hard disk. These are sometimes called primary partitions. The limitation of four is one that is imposed on the system by the way that the master boot record is structured.

Windows 9x won't recognize the other primary partitions. Generally, you use multiple primary partitions for different operating systems.

Only one partition may be designated, at any given time, as active. That partition will be used for booting the system. See here for more on active partitions and switching active status between partitions.

DOS (and the operating systems that depend on it for booting, which includes all consumer Windows operating systems) will only recognize the active primary partition. Any other primary partitions will be ignored.

One of the four partitions may be designated as an extended DOS partition. This partition may then be subdivided into multiple logical partitions. This is the way that two or more logical DOS volumes can be placed on a single hard disk.

Answered by Raksha , an ibibo Master, at 3:32 PM on June 22, 2008

well rajat, A maximum of four partitions can be placed on any hard disk. These are sometimes called primary partitions. The limitation of four is one that is imposed on the system by the way that the master boot record is structured.

Windows 9x won't recognize the other primary partitions. Generally, you use multiple primary partitions for different operating systems.

Only one partition may be designated, at any given time, as active. That partition will be used for booting the system. See here for more on active partitions and switching active status between partitions.

DOS (and the operating systems that depend on it for booting, which includes all consumer Windows operating systems) will only recognize the active primary partition. Any other primary partitions will be ignored.

One of the four partitions may be designated as an extended DOS partition. This partition may then be subdivided into multiple logical partitions.

Answered by Romi , an ibibo Master, at 9:42 PM on June 21, 2008

A maximum of four partitions can be placed on any hard disk. These are sometimes called primary partitions. The limitation of four is one that is imposed on the system by the way that the master boot record is structured.

Only one partition may be designated, at any given time, as active. That partition will be used for booting the system. See here for more on active partitions and switching active status between partitions.

DOS (and the operating systems that depend on it for booting, which includes all consumer Windows operating systems) will only recognize the active primary partition. Any other primary partitions will be ignored.

One of the four partitions may be designated as an extended DOS partition. This partition may then be subdivided into multiple logical partitions. This is the way that two or more logical DOS volumes can be placed on a single hard disk.

Extended partitions allow for multiple "logical" drives. You can have up to 24 drives in your extended partition (26 letters of the alphabet but A and B are reserved for floppy drives). Although Win2000 will allow even more drives due to volume naming that does not require drive letters.

You can use 4 primary partitions (or 2) but windows 9x won't recognize the other primary partitions. Generally, you use multiple primary partitions for different operating systems.

Answered by Madhurima , an ibibo Master, at 1:21 PM on June 20, 2008

well, The rules that govern partition setup are as follows:

* A maximum of four partitions can be placed on any hard disk. These are sometimes called primary partitions. The limitation of four is one that is imposed on the system by the way that the master boot record is structured.
* Only one partition may be designated, at any given time, as active. That partition will be used for booting the system. See here for more on active partitions and switching active status between partitions.
* DOS (and the operating systems that depend on it for booting, which includes all consumer Windows operating systems) will only recognize the active primary partition. Any other primary partitions will be ignored.
* One of the four partitions may be designated as an extended DOS partition. This partition may then be subdivided into multiple logical partitions. This is the way that two or more logical DOS volumes can be placed on a single hard disk.

Alright, I realize that this is somewhat confusing, so let's take a look at some examples of systems, to show you how this scheme is used:

* Single Partition Windows PC: Many PCs have all of their disk space made into a single partition, and use one of the FAT file systems. Such a machine would have just a single FAT primary partition on it, and nothing else. The other three "slots" for partitions on the disk would be empty.
* Multiple Partition Windows PC: To use more than one partition at a time on a DOS/Windows system, two partitions are used. One is a regular DOS primary partition (which becomes the "C:" drive). The other is the extended DOS partition. Within the extended DOS partition, all the other logical drives are created. So a drive with four logical drive letters would have the first (C:) be the active primary partition, and the other three (D:, E: and F:) would be logicals within the extended DOS partition.

Answered by Uttam , an ibibo Master, at 2:19 PM on June 18, 2008

hi there

A maximum of four partitions can be placed on any hard disk. These are sometimes called primary partitions. The limitation of four is one that is imposed on the system by the way that the master boot record is structured.

Only one partition may be designated, at any given time, as active. That partition will be used for booting the system. See here for more on active partitions and switching active status between partitions.

DOS (and the operating systems that depend on it for booting, which includes all consumer Windows operating systems) will only recognize the active primary partition. Any other primary partitions will be ignored.

One of the four partitions may be designated as an extended DOS partition. This partition may then be subdivided into multiple logical partitions. This is the way that two or more logical DOS volumes can be placed on a single hard disk.

Extended partitions allow for multiple "logical" drives. You can have up to 24 drives in your extended partition (26 letters of the alphabet but A and B are reserved for floppy drives). Although Win2000 will allow even more drives due to volume naming that does not require drive letters.

You can use 4 primary partitions (or 2) but windows 9x won't recognize the other primary partitions. Generally, you use multiple primary partitions for different operating systems.

Answered by Reeta K , an ibibo Master, at 6:19 PM on June 17, 2008

hi rajat they are infact one of the same; a hard drive can be divided into many different partitions; each partition will be known as logical drives; however, the primary partition is the partition that will have the master boot record and the boot files on it; usually c. this, more often than not, will also contain the operation system; but this is also a logical drive, all the other logical drives on the hard drive are known as extended partitions
this is taken from source http://www.faqs.org/qa/qa-13242.htm l

Answered by laks , an ibibo Master, at 4:42 PM on June 17, 2008