how many partitions can handle windows xp and 7?

Hi

how many partitions can handle windows xp and 7?

is there a limit?

i don't talk about 1tetra or 1.5 tetra , but numbers of partitions

thanks
cheers

 

http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/windows-vista-partition-problem

 

MBR-based partitions are limited to four primary partitions (incl. any extended ones) and by total number of logical partitions contained withing the extended one - 24 per drive. Also, 2TB is a limit for any MBR partition, beyond that, you need GPT.

 

sorry could you please more clear

i for example i have 1 primary and 5 logical

in short which is the max that can i have?

 

mantra,

If your primary is C: and your DVD drive is D: then you can see 22 logical volumes. E: to Z: (you have now run out of drive letters)

You can actually have up to 200 primary partitions on a MBR HD but you need special software to do this and only 4 primary partitions can be in the MBR at any one time. As doktornotor mentioned, GPT allows a lot of partitions, up to 128, but these partitions can't be seen in WinXP. They are seen in Win7. I assume when you run out of drive letters you can't see subsequent partitions.

Edit ... you can have more than 22 logical volumes but only 22 can be seen at any one time. Let's assume you had 25 logical volumes then you would have to remove the drive letters from 3 of them for it to work. You can expose/hide the logical volumes from Disk Management.

 

To summarize what is said above.

Windows can display 22 partitions in it's enviroment (restriction because of the drive letters), but can handle unlimited partitions.
MBR disk: maximum 4 primary partitions and only 1 extended (3 primaries + 1 extended = 4 primaries)
the extended partition (is a primary partition) can have unlimited number of logical partitions.
GPT disk: can have 128 primary partitions but not an extended partition (and of course no logical partitions).

Panagiotis

 

Panagiotis,

Great summary.

 

Thanks Brian.

By the way has anyone played with the efi partition and the gpt protected partitions? Simple curiosity...

Panagiotis

 

I've created about 10 GPT partitions with BootIt BM on a 20 GB HD. Just as a test. All seen in Win7 and data added. Nothing more serious done.

 

Terabyte products support gpt disks?

ps. I only played with gpt in mounted vhds in windows enviroment and don't know much about it. By the way Mac gpt disks are different from windows(mac leaves free spaces between the partitions), isn't there a standard for all OSes like in mbr disks?

Panagiotis

 

BootIt Bare Metal....


Supports MBR, EMBR and GPT type partitioning.

Convert between MBR, EMBR and GPT type disks.

Supports hard drives beyond 16 exabytes in size.

 

Cool, thanks.

I played with it in the beta but since it was released I did not have the time to explore it further...

Panagiotis

 

It is a free upgrade if you bought BING after July 01 2009. For older copies of BING, an upgrade is 50% off the price.

 

You do not need any such thing to manage GTP volumes with Windows 7.

 

BootIT BM is a great tool for sure. As mentioned above, I would highly recommend it for what you are looking to do.

 

doktornotor,

My experience with GPT is very limited. I note you can resize GPT volumes larger or smaller in Win7 Disk Management. Can you slide (move) a GPT volume? I couldn't see an option for that. Can you create a volume on the HD with a specific offset from the previous volume?

 

Thanks, I knew about this (I was one of the lucky ones, that had it as a free upgrade)... by the way I love the new guid interface. As soon I find some time I'll give it a proper spin.

Panagiotis

 

thanks a lot really
now it's all clear

 

"maximum 4 primary partitions"

something is not right here
I'm running XP and I have 5 primary partitions
and extended one, my computer must not know
it can only have 4
oh well I'm not going to tell it

 

You are welcome.

For the record, I wrote:

If you have 2 disks on your pc your limit is 2x4=8 primary partitions,3 disks 3x4=12 primary and so on...

Panagiotis

 

OK that explains it, I have three disks but one has three partitions
on it, thanks, I learned something new today

 

doktornotor,

Did you find a way for DiskPart to do this? I can't find it.

 

Well, first of all I think if you need to ask " how many partitions can handle windows xp and 7" then you are doing something very weird and probably quite wrong with your system. I cannot see any single user out there that would get over the limit with normal usage of this kind of stuff.

The bundled partitioning tools in Windows never had move function AFAICT, it only has grown the ability to resize with Vista.