Comments on: What is the Difference Between Primary and Logical Partition?

By: Zozel

Zozel — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:52:17 +0000

LOL, I was expecting an actual "explanation". It seems you only bothered to tell me the colours Disk Management shows me labeled on each partition when I open it and about the hardware habits of Windows 95 – who gives a damn about them?

Too bad!

By: Adel

Adel — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:13:34 +0000

You cannot convert primary partitions to logical partitions.

You can create logical partitions inside an extended partition. A hard disk can have up to four partitions, but only one can be extended partition. The other partitions, up to three of them, can be primary partitions.

To create extended partition, you must have unallocated space on your hard drive.

It seems that the Disk Management console doesn't allow creation of extended partitions, so we have to use the diskpart utility.

Open a command prompt with "Run as administrator" and type the command "diskpart".

The typical sequence of diskpart commands is shown below. Note # comments are only comments, you actually don't type any comments in diskpart sequence of commands.

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7600
Copyright (C) 1999-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: SEVEN-03

DISKPART> select disk 1 # This is in fact second disk. Disks are numbered from 0

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list part

There are no partitions on this disk to show.

# First we create extended partition. Extended partition is only container for logical partitions.

DISKPART> create partition extended size=300 # The size is in MB

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

DISKPART> list part

Partition ### Type Size Offset
————- —————- ——- ——-
* Partition 0 Extended 300 MB 1024 KB

DISKPART> select partition 0

Partition 0 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> create partition logical size=100 # We create the first logical partition

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

DISKPART> create partition logical size=50 # We create the second logical partition. And so on, as many as we like

DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart…

Don't forget to format logical partitions.

Good luck

From : social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproinstall/thread/1b44458b-7faf-46d0-bde1-fb3cb0615556

By: Plamen BG

Plamen BG — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 11:09:50 +0000

Is Primary Partition faster then logical ?

I have 4 HDD's and all Partitions are Primary.

Is this wrong ?

By: pacicop

pacicop — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 09:33:23 +0000

hi,may i know what the best type for formatting my usb hard disk.Samsung 80Gb where i make it as external drive.Better primary or as Logical Drive. Just wanna used as data storage.

By: e-t-c

e-t-c — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:41:11 +0000

"What is the technical difference between the two? That is the main thing I thing which this topic didn’t address."

The difference in simple words: One Harddisk can have 4 Primary Partitions – or – 3 Primary & 1 Extended.

+) The Primary Partition = One Primary Drive in one Primary Peace

+) The Extented Partition = One Primary Drive that can split up to 63 Logic Peaces (Partitions, (sub)Drives)