primary DOS partition or an extended DOS partition?

I want to put a slave hard drive into a computer that's master drive
has windows 98SE on it. Should I create it as a primary DOS partition
or an extended DOS partition?
Also as long as I am asking about it what is a logical DOS drive
within an extended DOS partition?????

On Mon, 7 Feb 2011 08:34:29 -0800 (PST), DJW wrote:

I want to put a slave hard drive into a computer that's master drive
has windows 98SE on it. Should I create it as a primary DOS partition
or an extended DOS partition?

I think and extended partition only comes *after* you create a primary
partition. ie, if you already have a primary, the next partition you
create becomes the extended partition. This is based primarily what I
remember seeing when using Partition Magic.

Also as long as I am asking about it what is a logical DOS drive
within an extended DOS partition?????

Sorry, have no clue here.
--
Charlie Hoffpauir

Everything is what it is because it got that way....D'Arcy Thompson

On 2/7/2011 10:34 AM, DJW wrote:
I want to put a slave hard drive into a computer that's master drive
has windows 98SE on it. Should I create it as a primary DOS partition
or an extended DOS partition?

If you only have one partition on the drive, I think Charlie's correct
in stating that it has to be a primary partition. (That at least makes
sense given the vocabulary.)

Also as long as I am asking about it what is a logical DOS drive
within an extended DOS partition?????

Logical drives correspond to drive letters in your aforementioned
operating systems. I'm a little shakey on the details without looking
them up, but this is how I remember it:

1) A primary partition, if properly formatted, will correspond to a
single logical drive (drive letter) in your system.

2) There is a limit to the number of primary partitions you can create
on a disk -- maybe 3 or 4.

3) You can create a single extended partition that can contain several
logical drives, or sub-partitions if you want to think of it that way.

So, if you wanted to have a half a dozen, or more, logical drives on a
physical drive, you would have to create an extended partition.

An example of where this might be useful, at one time anyhow, was for cd
authoring. I can recall have a 5GB drive that I used to produce
instructional discs. I partitioned it up into 7 partitions of 700MB
each, so that I could build the disc before burning it.

At any rate, make a primary partition on your second drive and be done
with it.

"DJW" wrote:
I want to put a slave hard drive into a computer that's master drive
has windows 98SE on it. Should I create it as a primary DOS partition
or an extended DOS partition?
Also as long as I am asking about it what is a logical DOS drive
within an extended DOS partition?????

This is the scheme for WinXP/NT/2K (Win98SE may not be quite
as flexible): A single hard drive can have up to 4 Primary partitions.
A Primary partition is needed to hold the boot loader and the boot menu.
If a partition's boot loader is to be used, it must be marked as being "active".
The operating system itself can reside on any partition on any hard drive
in the system, even on a logical drive within an Extended partition.
An Extended partition entry takes one space in the Partition Table, so
if there is an Extended partition, there can only be up to 3 Primary partitions.
The Logical Drives within an Extended partition act like Primary partitions
as containers of files and folders. Except for holding a boot loader and
boot menu and being marked "active", a Logical Drive can be used just
as any Primary partition, i.e. it will be assigned a drive letter and will be
treated by the File Manager as a Primary partition.

There is no difference between a Master and Slave hard drive. The
assignment as "Master" and "Slave" is completely arbitrary, and they are
treated identically by the operating system. The only difference comes in
which is searched first by the BIOS for a Master Boot Record at startup.
The first Master Boot Record found will point to the "active" partition on
that hard drive.

For your need for another partition of storage space, you can make
your 2nd hard drive (the one which you will use as a Slave hard drive)
contain one large Primary partition. Or 4 Primary partitions. Or 3 Primary
partitions and one Extended partition containing "many" Logical Drives.
Any restrictions imposed by Win98xx on the above descriptions will not
impact your intended configuration and its usage.

*TimDaniels*

On Feb 7, 11:34 am, DJW wrote:
I want to put a slave hard drive into a computer that's master drive
has windows 98SE on it. Should I create it as a primary DOS partition
or an extended DOS partition?
Also as long as I am asking about it what is a logical DOS drive
within an extended DOS partition?????

Master / Slave, (the original way), may be more or less easier via
jumpering / routing for Cable Select, (more of recent). Depends on
how different HD manuf names coexist, their age, and to some extent,
the BIOS config;- SATA forgoes any such necessity.

BIOS then usually will assign the drive ordering for a sequential
chain to boot. I prefer a software boot arbitrator, RANISH, but would
have to look more closely for BIOS interaction/restrictions if any.

The DOS thingy is basically three staged -- 1) DOS allows up to 4
primary drives, 2) in an extended partition that contains 3) logical
drives you then create. (When all else fails FDISK /MBR may be a
quick fix, or the manufacturer's drive maintenance utilities, which
can be exhaustive).

3rd-party partitioning software is the only way to go, considering
when obfuscated-challenged people actually had to do those sort of
things, before "radio dial" GUI thingies took care of having to
carefully read technical specifications. That's back then and now.
Now being the age of monstrously magnificent drive sizes, which as-
originally written "DOS software" cannot handle. To work in
FAT16/20/32 bit increments (98-speak) on some mega-terabyte drives is
doable, if you know drive specs and how to get around with curveballs,
the emphasis being not with just any old software.

In message Charlie
Hoffpauir was claimed to have wrote:

On Mon, 7 Feb 2011 08:34:29 -0800 (PST), DJW wrote:

I want to put a slave hard drive into a computer that's master drive
has windows 98SE on it. Should I create it as a primary DOS partition
or an extended DOS partition?

I think and extended partition only comes *after* you create a primary
partition. ie, if you already have a primary, the next partition you
create becomes the extended partition. This is based primarily what I
remember seeing when using Partition Magic.

While this is often how it was done, there's no particular reason to do
it this way beyond convention.

If you want to dual boot OSes without a bootloader, you'll need multiple
primary partitions, each one containing it's own OS.

As originally designed, you can have up to 4 partitions per drive, or up
to 3 primary partitions and one extended partition which can contain one
or more logical partitions.

Hmmm.. The mark of the newbie: He never says "Thanks", he
never gives feedback, as if Usenet were an automated teller or
an automated Help button.

*TimDaniels*

"DJW" wrote in message ...
I want to put a slave hard drive into a computer that's master drive
has windows 98SE on it. Should I create it as a primary DOS partition
or an extended DOS partition?
Also as long as I am asking about it what is a logical DOS drive
within an extended DOS partition?????

In message "Timothy
Daniels" was claimed to have wrote:

Hmmm.. The mark of the newbie: He never says "Thanks", he
never gives feedback, as if Usenet were an automated teller or
an automated Help button.

You don't thank your ATM?