What is are active vs. hidden vs primary vs extended partitions?

[Muse]

Could someone clearly explain these terms? Do they apply equally to FAT, FAT32, and NTFS partitions? Thanks.

 

[schdaddy]

Active = default partition to boot to on the hard drive
Hidden = some apps let you password protect partitions, without the password you don't get to see it

Primary & Extended are just types of partitions (they work the same you can format them anyway you want)
You can have a max of 4 PRI on a drive or 3 PRI and 1 EXT (within the extended you can have as many logical drives you want)

 

[MCS]

Heres an example:

Primary DOS partition C: <--- Active
Extended DOS partition:
Logical Drive D:
Logical Drive E:
Logical Drive F:

I could delete E: and F: and make another (but larger) E: drive.

You can only boot from the Primary DOS partition, and it must be set Active.

I could install Windows on D: but it would still boot from C:, and it would put boot files there.

 

[Muse]

<< Heres an example:

Primary DOS partition C: <--- Active
Extended DOS partition:
Logical Drive D:
Logical Drive E:
Logical Drive F:

I could delete E: and F: and make another (but larger) E: drive.

You can only boot from the Primary DOS partition, and it must be set Active.

I could install Windows on D: but it would still boot from C:, and it would put boot files there. >>

Why make a partition primary vs not primary? What is the distinction? Apparently you can have several primary partitions on the same drive.

In this scheme, how does multi-booting work? What if I want to install 3 or 4 versions of Windows (I do - Win98SE, WinNT 4.0, Win2k Pro, and eventually XP)? All these OSs put their boot files in the C: partition? Or do they put them in their own partition? If they go in the C: partition, do I have a choice of whether I want that partition to also contain an install of Windows?

Do each of my Windows partitions have to be primary?

Can I have some of my Windows partitions on different HDs?

 

[MCS]

<< Why make a partition primary vs not primary? What is the distinction? Apparently you can have several primary partitions on the same drive. >>



- Primary DOS partitions are bootable, but only one at a time. The Active Primary DOS partition will always be C:, and the boot drive. Say for example I had the partitions C: and D:, both Primary DOS partitions, C: being active (boot). If I then make D: the active partition, it will become C: and what WAS C: will now be D:. Extended partitions are non-bootable.



<< In this scheme, how does multi-booting work? What if I want to install 3 or 4 versions of Windows (I do - Win98SE, WinNT 4.0, Win2k Pro, and eventually XP)? All these OSs put their boot files in the C: partition? Or do they put them in their own partition? If they go in the C: partition, do I have a choice of whether I want that partition to also contain an install of Windows? >>



- All of those OSs require boot files on C:, although NT4/2000/XP setup will take care of this itself. You cannot have more than one Win9x OS on a system, unless you hide each one from the other. NT/2000/XP can be installed on any partition you like, as long as they have access to C:. So in your case you can quite happily have all 4 OSs:

C: Windows 98SE
D: Windows NT4
E: Windows 2000
F: Windows XP

C: drive is the only one that needs to be Primary DOS. You do need have to install Windows onto C:, but you might as well. Just install Windows 98 first and then run each of the other Windows setup from within Windows 98 and it will take care of the boot menu for you. Each OS will add themselves to it.

 

[CQuinn]

Primary is the main type of partition that can be created.
You can create up to four primary partitions on a drive,
because the Master Boot Record only allows for 4 partition
records.

Extended is a variation on a Primary partition, that allows you
to create "sub-partitions" or logical partitions within it.

You have to have a primary partition to create an extended partition;
or at least a partition "stub" to separate the space used by the
extended partition from the rest of the drive. That is why on
some drives with only extended partitions on them, you will often
also see

Active is a flag set in the MBR to tell which primary
partition the system will boot from. There is a limitation on the
MBR where the boot files for the system have to be within the first
1024 cylinders of the drive, which is why most partitioning programs
will warn you if you try to make the main primary partition too large.

Hidden is another flag set in the MBR, that tells most
OSes to ignore a particular partition. This flag is helpful for
setting up more than one primary partition while using an OS that
does not deal well with more than one primary on a drive
(DOS/Windows 9x/ME).

These terms apply equally to all OSes and filesystems.

Technically you can only boot from a primary partition, but most modern
OSes have a bootloader that will switch control from that boot point to
somewhere else on the drive. DOS and Windows 9x/ME still use and
older method that assumed they were the only OSes on the drive, which
is why they cannot easily handle booting from any drive other than C:

Multi-booting works that way, the boot-loader or a separate program
loads from the primary active partition, and then tranfers control
to whatever OS the user decides will boot from there. That way you
can install some OSes on extended partitions or even on other drives,
and still boot to them.

(One reason to hide partitions is too fool the OS into thinking that there
is only one partition assigned as C: - some boot managers can then unhide
and switch to the other partitions as needed.)

http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish/part/primer.htm