Ok, this may sound strange and extremely newbie like. But I have never gave this much thought. Can someone explain to me what primary, extended and logical partitions are and are for? When I used MSWin you could make the primary partition, and extended and logical on the extended. You can never have more then one primary...etc. So I never gave it much thought. Can logical or exteneded work without a primary? I only use Primary partitions for my hard drives right now with Linux. Any info would be appreciated. You can use big words too, lol, I have a dictionary next to me .

Edit: By the way. I know what a partition is, I am just curious about the different types of them.

Webwolf

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/...titions-c.html

it's about DOS but should pertain to Linux as well.

*edit: btw, DOS needs at least one primary while Linux does not.

You can only have 4 primary partitions, so if you want more you
make an extended partition which can hold logical partitions. It
is actually one partition with sub-partitions inside of it. So if you
want more than 4 paritions (I do even with only one OS) then
you can have 3 primary partitions and after that logical partitions
inside the extended partition.

I can't remember all the technical words, so until someone who
does, or stops to look it up, comes along - you can leave your
dictionary in it's holster.

This is one thing I was wondering about. Linux doesn't need a primary while Windows does. I tried to install XP on a computer that had only one partition. It was a logical one. XP did not want to install even though it had the first part of the HD. So I went back, re-installed Linux, saved all info from the logical installation and put it in a primary partition. Then I re-installing XP and it worked. Every time I installed XP it would screw everything up and cfdisk wouldn't even work with it. It didn't seem to like the logical on partition at all. The only thing that saved it was Mandrake partitioning. That is why I started wondering about partitions.

I am going to check this link out right now, thanks.

And, damn, I just dusted off my dictionary too.


Webwolf