Primary vs Logical Partitions?

[Scott (angrykeyboarder)]

James Taji spake thusly:
> On 9/6/07, Scott (angrykeyboarder) <geekboy at angrykeyboarder.com> wrote:
>> Despite all my research on this subject, I'm still unclear on some things.
>>
>> If I have my facts straight, you can only have a total of 4 primary
>> partitions.
>>
>> If you've got 2 hard drives you could have one on one and 3 on the other
>> (or two on each) but the end result is the total can't be more than 4.
> 
> The limit of 4 primary partitions is per disk.

Oh OK.
> 
>> And if I have this straight, you can also have a drive with *no* primary
>> partition. Said drive would have an extended partition and 4 (or 9....)
>> logical partitions within that.
> 
> Not exactly, an extended partition IS a primary partition. 1 of the 4
> primary partitions can be an extended partition.

I'm used to seeing the choice of "Logical Partition" or "Primary
Partition" in apps like QTParted or GParted, hence my confusion.

> 
>> I'm having lots of difficulty with an external hard drive and I'm not
>> sure where my problem lies. Right now it's got no primary partition. It
>> has an extended partition and one logical partition within that. It's
>> formatted as ext3
>>
>> Should that work?
> 
> That should be fine.

Thanks.

-- 
            Scott
http://angrykeyboarder.com
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