converting a primary partition to a logical partition?

hi guys,
recently i've clean-installed vista on one of my hdd's. during installation i've created two partitions and formatted both of them via vista's setup screen. later, i've decided to get rid of vista and switch back to xp pro. and so i did. but now my secondary partition on which non-system files (like documents, audio files, etc) dwell whicg is supposed to be a logical drive is now a primary drive.
so my "c" partition is "primary, active" but "d" partition is also "primary" (not active, of course).
as far as i know, secondary partition (partition "d") must be "logical" partition.
is there any chance i could convert this partition "d" to a logical partition WITHOUT LOSING ANY DATA?
thanks & best regards

 

There is always some "risk" in working with partitions. Therefore, you should always backup your data first.

There are many programs that will perform the task. Many people in this forum recommend Partition Wizard. I have not yet done partition work with Partition Wizard.

Set Partition as Logical:

http://www.partitionwizard.com/help/set-partition-as-logical.html

If you do not want to install any software you could use the Partition Wizard bootable CD:

http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

 

guest, I was reading your post and wondered why the above should be so.

All my machines' secondary partitions are primary, only meaning (I thought) that they could carry an OS.

Why must they be logical?

Just interested!

philby

 

well, aamof it doesn't necessarily have to be so. the reason why i want it to be is...

Thanks - I was just curious.

Re. your second question; looking at Disk Management in Computer Management, I have apparently no unallocated space either. That's on both Vista and Win7 machines.

However, on my Win7 machine diskpart.exe shows 1mb 'free space' as well as my 2 partitions.







So maybe diskpart.exe will shed some light on any unallocated/free space.

philby

 

Hi there,

It is odd that I have lately too been messing around with partitions, and have asked myself the same questions about primary/logical and particularly the tiny unallocated space often found before the primary active and at the end of the logical partition.

I found this thread:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=62131

Unfortunately after reading it, I find it raises more questions rather than clarifying the issues.

I have used Easeus Home Edition for Vista32, and Vista own tool for the 64 version. All in all I prefer to keep my HD in all my machines unpartitioned as it makes it easier to restore images and safer as partitions could theoretically get infected as a result from being in the same drive.