[E-66]

Kinda confused as to why this is happening and could use an explanation.

My main HD normally has 3 partitions - the primary and two logicals, so C, D, & E. I know if I add a 2nd HD with a primary partition that partition becomes the new D, so my main HD would then become C, E, & F.

Just as an experiment I made 3 partitions on my main HD, but made all of them primary partitions. I then added a 2nd HD to the system that contained one logical partition. I thought this would keep my drive letters as they were, with the 2nd HD becoming F, but that's not what happened. The drive letters shifted exactly as they did in my first example and I don't understand why. I was reading on the PC Guide about the way drive letters are assigned (link below), and according to what I read there my drive letters shouldn't have shifted.

Can someone explain why they did?

http://pcguide.com/r...rtLetter-c.html

This post has been edited by E-66: 01 November 2006 - 03:40 AM

[eidenk]

As far as I have seen it always behaves like that.

First drive letter is the first partition of Disk 0.

Second drive letter is the first partition of Disk 1.

Etc...

Regardless of primary/logical partitions.



There is a tool to change letter assignments : http://www.v72735.f2s.com/LetAssig/

Can't comment on it though as I have never let it install entirely.

This post has been edited by eidenk: 01 November 2006 - 03:57 AM

[Petr]

It is not recommended to make more than one primary partition per HDD and Windows 98 SE FDISK does not allow to create them.

The ordering from my experience is as follows:

- primary partition of the first HDD
- primary partition of the second HDD (if any)
- primary partition of the third HDD (if any)
- primary partition of the fourth HDD (if any)
- all logical drives in extended partition of the first HDD (if any)
- all logical drives in extended partition of the second HDD (if any)
- all logical drives in extended partition of the third HDD (if any)
- all logical drives in extended partition of the fourth HDD (if any)

I know it very well because I had several removable disks with logical drives in extended partition only and they did not move my disk D (logical drive in extended partition of the first HDD).

Petr

This post has been edited by Petr: 01 November 2006 - 11:18 AM

[E-66]

Petr, on Nov 1 2006, 12:17 PM, said:

It is not recommended to make more than one primary partition per HDD and Windows 98 SE FDISK does not allow to create them.

I've never had more than 1 primary partition on a HD before until I tried this experiment, but what is the reason you shouldn't have more than 1 per HD in Win98? I use GDISK instead of FDISK so it wasn't a problem for me to create them, and I have no problem changing things back to the way they were before (1 primary and 2 logicals instead of the current 3 primaries), but I'd like to understand why.

Eidenk, that drive letter assigner program worked perfectly. I think I might use it once I set my HD back to the way I had it before.

[Petr]

E-66, on Nov 1 2006, 07:03 PM, said:

Petr, on Nov 1 2006, 12:17 PM, said:

It is not recommended to make more than one primary partition per HDD and Windows 98 SE FDISK does not allow to create them.

I've never had more than 1 primary partition on a HD before until I tried this experiment, but what is the reason you shouldn't have more than 1 per HD in Win98? I use GDISK instead of FDISK so it wasn't a problem for me to create them, and I have no problem changing things back to the way they were before (1 primary and 2 logicals instead of the current 3 primaries), but I'd like to understand why.

I don't know why. Maybe this configuration is not tested and may give unpredictable or inconsistent results.

Petr

[E-66]

Ah, ok, maybe someone else will chime in. I've since changed my main HD back to how I had it before - 1 primary, 2 logical, and am going to try using the drive letter assigner program that eidenk linked to in post #2.

[LLXX]

The enumeration mechanism follows the order -

The first partition of each physical drive is enumerated, followed by the second partition of each physical drive, third partition, etc.

[Petr]

LLXX, on Nov 2 2006, 06:42 AM, said:

The enumeration mechanism follows the order -

The first partition of each physical drive is enumerated, followed by the second partition of each physical drive, third partition, etc.

My experience shows that this is not correct.

Petr

[E-66]

The article I linked to in my original post is incorrect if what LLXX says is true.

[glocK_94]

I agree with Petr. Primary first, logical then.

Multiple primary partitions ? I'm sure that's why Win98 messed up the drive letters.
Sometimes, Windows doesn't refresh the drive letters when you change partitions so you have to unplug the disk, start windows and replug it later.

[eidenk]

The article above is incorrect anyway as your experience and my screenshot shows.

LLXX is also incorrect if you want to look at the screenshot again, particularly at disk 1.

It's Paragon who created the partitions but it is Windows who detected them and named them like that on reboot.

[E-66]

Eidenk, that drive letter assigner program worked great, thanks for posting the link to it. I've just recently started messing around with XP and dual booting and with the help of that program I was able to keep my main HD partitions named C, D, & E (instead of C, E, & F) while installing XP on the 2nd HD on the first partition named F (instead of D).

This post has been edited by E-66: 02 November 2006 - 12:26 PM

[jaclaz]

There are a few old threads related to the matter, referenced in my post here:
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...mp;#entry463153

jaclaz

[Petr]

I'd avoid the use of the drive letter assigner program if possible because it means that you will have different letters in DOS and different in Windows - a good chance to do something wrong.

Petr

[Petr]

I've tried one experiment and put after C: another two disks with the same layout:
DISK 2
1. PRIMARY - D
2. PRIMARY - J
3. EXTENDED
\-- logical disk - F
\-- logical disk - G
4. EXTENDED
\-- logical disk - L
\-- logical disk - M
DISK 3
1. PRIMARY - E
2. PRIMARY - K
3. EXTENDED
\-- logical disk - H
\-- logical disk - I
4. EXTENDED
\-- logical disk - N
\-- logical disk - O

but the system was so confused that format overwrote one partition by another and even it was not possible to format all disks. Also Win98SE FDISK did not displayed correctly the logical drives in the second extended partition.

So here is the resulting rule for disk ordering:
- the first primary partition on every disk
- logical drives in the first extended partition on every disk
- the second primary partition on every disk
- logical drives in the second extended partition on every disk

So there is the answer to the original E-66 question "Why?":
In the first setup the order was disk1-primary, disk2-primary, disk1-logical, disk1-logical
In the second setup the order was disk1-primry, disk2-logical, disk1-primary2, disk1-primary3

So the mistake was to change the logical drives to primary partitions. Without this, the order would be:
disk1-primary, disk1-logical, disk1-logical, disk2-logical
exactly as needed.

So after my short experiment I again recommend not to use more than one DOS/Win primary and one extended partition. And don't change the letters by any utility unless it is really necessary. Anything other is just asking for troubles.

Petr

[E-66]

Petr, on Nov 2 2006, 02:59 PM, said:

So the mistake was to change the logical drives to primary partitions.

You are correct. That ended up being a very short experiment on my part. I've since switched back to a primary and 2 logicals on the first HD.

Petr, on Nov 2 2006, 02:59 PM, said:

Without this, the order would be:
disk1-primary, disk1-logical, disk1-logical, disk2-logical
exactly as needed.

I need a bit of clarification here, and I'll also clarify something I said in my first post. I originally said that I added a 2nd HD with one logical partition. I did that, but only as part of the experiment. What I think I need is to have a primary partition on the 2nd HD to install XP on (Win9x is on the first HD). Now if I do indeed need a primary partition for XP on HD #2, then that's the reason for my interest in the drive letter assigning program, because I'd like to keep the partitions on HD #1 named C, D, & E and then have the primary partition for XP on HD #2 be named F. I actually have the system set up that way right now and everything is working fine.

However, last night I believe I read on here or another forum that in a dual boot setup you don't have to have both OS's on primary partitions, just the first OS, and that as long as the bootloader program is located on the primary partition of HD #1 you can install the 2nd OS on a logical partition on HD #2 and still successfully boot to it. Unfortunately I forgot to bookmark that information when I read it last night and I don't have it handy right now. If that's true, then I guess I could dispense with the drive letter assigner program and just make a logical partition on HD #2 for XP.

So my question is, is it true that I don't need a primary partition on HD #2 for XP? If I don't, am I able to create an extended & logical partition during XP setup? I've only installed XP a couple times and I don't remember if I saw the option to create extended/logical partitions.

This post has been edited by E-66: 02 November 2006 - 04:34 PM

[Petr]

I think it is correct, Windows XP can be installed on logical drive in extended partition. I'm not sure if Windows XP setup is able to create the partition or not, I always partitioned the disk before installing Windows. Even Windows 98 can reside in extended partition but it is necessary to install it to primary partition and then move it to extended partition using Ghost or similar tool - if I remember correctly.

Several years ago I had a setup with 4x Windows 98 SE, 4x Windows XP, Windows 2000, 2x Red Hat Linux but I used XOSL as boot manager and hiding of unwanted partitions.

Petr

[E-66]

Petr, on Nov 3 2006, 01:49 AM, said:

I think it is correct, Windows XP can be installed on logical drive in extended partition. I'm not sure if Windows XP setup is able to create the partition or not, I always partitioned the disk before installing Windows.

If you partitioned the disk first does that mean you installed XP on a FAT 32 partition? I'm certainly no expert but from what I've read it seems that NTFS is wholeheartedly recommended for XP. Or are there partition utilities out there that can create NTFS partitions?

This post has been edited by E-66: 03 November 2006 - 01:53 AM

[LLXX]

E-66, on Nov 3 2006, 02:52 AM, said:

Petr, on Nov 3 2006, 01:49 AM, said:

I think it is correct, Windows XP can be installed on logical drive in extended partition. I'm not sure if Windows XP setup is able to create the partition or not, I always partitioned the disk before installing Windows.

If you partitioned the disk first does that mean you installed XP on a FAT 32 partition? I'm certainly no expert but from what I've read it seems that NTFS is wholeheartedly recommended for XP. Or are there partition utilities out there that can create NTFS partitions?

Good luck recovering your data from DOS with a disk editor when your NTFS partition messes up...

[glocK_94]

"Power Quest Partition Magic" will create NTFS partitions and even convert FAT32 to NTFS or NTFS to FAT32 (sorry, it's not freeware).

Sure NTFS is "better" for XP than FAT32 but then you won't be able to access this partition from Win98...
FAT32 works fine under 98 AND XP.

On the other hand, using NTFS will have the effect to hide this partition to Win98...and that might be the result you want !
This way you could put XP on a primary partition without shifting your drive letters under Win98.