I have been trying to figure this out, by reading at various places, but I am still a bit confused. Here is my situation. I had 1 physical hard drive with only 1 partition (using all the space, drive C
, which has Windows XP Pro installed on it. I just recently got another physical hard drive. I just finished adding it into my case and detecting it in the BIOS. Once I boot into XP, I goto admin tools and comp. management. From there I proceed to disk management, and the first thing I am asked to do is to initialize the drive. I proceed to do that, and it asks whether I want a basic or a dynamic system. I choose basic. Now I have 60GB of unalocated space. This is where my question begins. I can right click on the drive and choose "new partition". It then will ask me whether I want a primary or extended partition. This is what I am not sure of. As an FYI, I am planning on using the second physical drive for data storage only (no OS). Assuming I want to just add 1 new partition (using all the space, drive D, should I create an extended partition with one logical, or should I create a primary partition? When thinking about it, I always think of a primary partition as one with an OS on it, but then I read on places online that says that is not always the case. This is why I am unsure what to do. Is there an advantage to one or the other? Which one will cause less problems or does it matter? Now just for the sake of options, if I wanted to instead have two partitions on my second physical drive (D: and E, then should I create one extended partition with two logical drives, one primary partition and one extended with one logical drive, or two primary partitions (which apparently I read is allowed in XP)?
Now one final thing. Would it be smart and efficient to create a really small partition, like 1 GB or something (D: drive) on the second physical drive, which would be just for the page file, and then use the remaining space 59GB for the data storage? Also, does the page file have to reside on a certain type of partition (ie primary or extended)? If not, then would it be possible to actually make the 59GB the D: drive and the 1GB (page file drive) the E: drive? And for that scenario, same questions as above as to which type of partitions.
One last question. Does partitioning a physical hard drive into multiple partitions stop defragmenting over the entire dirve? I.E., if you have say drive with two partitions d: with 30GB and drive e: with 30GB, does defragmentation only occur independently in the two partitions. Basically, if I use one 30GB partition and store something on there, that I will not change, and will leave alone, but then on the other 30GB partition I will be constantly changing/deleting, etc. files (which causes defragmentation), will I only have to defrag the second 30 GB partition, or will both partitions (since they are on the same physical disk), get equally fragmented? Thanks for your help.
SuperG03
, which has Windows XP Pro installed on it. I just recently got another physical hard drive. I just finished adding it into my case and detecting it in the BIOS. Once I boot into XP, I goto admin tools and comp. management. From there I proceed to disk management, and the first thing I am asked to do is to initialize the drive. I proceed to do that, and it asks whether I want a basic or a dynamic system. I choose basic. Now I have 60GB of unalocated space. This is where my question begins. I can right click on the drive and choose "new partition". It then will ask me whether I want a primary or extended partition. This is what I am not sure of. As an FYI, I am planning on using the second physical drive for data storage only (no OS). Assuming I want to just add 1 new partition (using all the space, drive D, should I create an extended partition with one logical, or should I create a primary partition? When thinking about it, I always think of a primary partition as one with an OS on it, but then I read on places online that says that is not always the case. This is why I am unsure what to do. Is there an advantage to one or the other? Which one will cause less problems or does it matter? Now just for the sake of options, if I wanted to instead have two partitions on my second physical drive (D: and E, then should I create one extended partition with two logical drives, one primary partition and one extended with one logical drive, or two primary partitions (which apparently I read is allowed in XP)?Now one final thing. Would it be smart and efficient to create a really small partition, like 1 GB or something (D: drive) on the second physical drive, which would be just for the page file, and then use the remaining space 59GB for the data storage? Also, does the page file have to reside on a certain type of partition (ie primary or extended)? If not, then would it be possible to actually make the 59GB the D: drive and the 1GB (page file drive) the E: drive? And for that scenario, same questions as above as to which type of partitions.
One last question. Does partitioning a physical hard drive into multiple partitions stop defragmenting over the entire dirve? I.E., if you have say drive with two partitions d: with 30GB and drive e: with 30GB, does defragmentation only occur independently in the two partitions. Basically, if I use one 30GB partition and store something on there, that I will not change, and will leave alone, but then on the other 30GB partition I will be constantly changing/deleting, etc. files (which causes defragmentation), will I only have to defrag the second 30 GB partition, or will both partitions (since they are on the same physical disk), get equally fragmented? Thanks for your help.
SuperG03
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