Can I create five partitions?

I just reinstalled XP and got a nice performance boost as a result. Before doing so, it occured to me that a partitioning scheme where I keep system files seperate from other files would probably help ensure that system speeds stayed fast (as well as not messing around with system files quite as much as I have recently). So I thought up a partitioning system that I think will work well:

C: - 12 GB, XP + most used programs (web browsers, Office, PDF reader, maybe one or two others)
D: - 18 GB, to be used for the Win7 beta when it comes out
E: - 60 GB, XP Programs
F: - 40 GB, Win7 Programs. Smaller than the XP one since some programs I'll be able to just run from their XP installations.
G: - 19.04 GB, My Documents. Only need one of these since I can just map both XP and Win7 to use the same My Documents location, at least in theory. If that fails, I can just ignore both My Documents and use G:\ as My Documents anyway.

The only problem here is that I remembered that you can only have 4 partitions on a hard drive, or at least that used to be the way it was. Which leads me to ask, is there some way I can create a fifth NTFS partition anyway? Or do I have to use some sort of "extended partition" that is actually only one partition but appears as two? If so I guess I'd probably combine the XP and Win7 program partitions.

Also, how would I go about creating an extended partition? Right now I've already got the XP 12 GB partition, and my plan is to use Vista's install disc to create the other NTFS partitions, but I don't recall it having an extended partition option.

'Course I could just try to go ahead and create five partitions and see what happens, but I've got 9 GB of data on a partition at the end of my disk right now that I don't really want to see disappear because of putting too many partitions on and the last one disappearing.

Also, any input on whether Programs or My Documents should come first? I kind of figured that since my documents will require a program to open them, the programs should come first, and that it would be nice to have programs open quickly regardless, but it is true that most of what's in My Documents opens with built-in apps or stuff I'd have on my first partition anyway. Since the partitions aren't created yet, they're open to being changed.

Thanks in advance.

 

why do you need such big partitions for programs, i mean seriously do you really have 60 Gb of programs on XP and 40 GB of programs for win7?

 

As far as I know you can have more than 4 partitions.

 

XP? probably as many allowed partitions as there are many letters in the alphabet

cheers ...

 

Four primary partitions per disk IIRC, you can stick three primaries and a whole bunch of extended partitions on there though.

I'd reconsider applications partitions though since they're going to be rendered 90% useless on a format + re-install of Windows anyway so they're going to need re-installing either way, you may as well just make the Windows partition itself bigger and install them to that.

It is worthwhile creating a partition for game installs if you play any MMOs though since a large number of them either don't require any registry entries to run or will run with only minor changes after a format and re-install of Windows.

 

I would advice G-Parted Live CD for partitioning.
Like you mentioned yourself, within an extended partition, you can make more logical partitions.
As far as I know you can only have 4 primary partitions in XP where an extended partition counts as one primary partition.

 

Just to parrot the others, you can have either (i) up to 4 primary partitions, or (ii) three primary partitions and one extended partition, which itself can consist of up to 23 logical drives (the limit of 23 is based on the labelling of partitions/drives with letters of the alphabet - 26 letters means no more than 26 partitions/drives).

There's a decent Wikipedia article on disk partitioning as well as a separate discussion of the extended partition.

 

Some interesting reads:
. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/GPT-on-x64.mspx
. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/GPT_FAQ.mspx

cheers ...

 

The seperation of Windows/Programs is to help keep Windows from getting bogged down by being spread all over the hard disk over time - if all the Windows stuff and programs that are started on boot are near the beginning of the drive, it should be quicker.

As to that extended partition stuff - how do I create one? When I go to Disk Management (didn't realize until just now XP had that, thought it was Vista-only), the option to create an extended partition is grayed out. Could this be because I have primary partitions at both the beginning and end of the disk?

Can GParted do NTFS? I've used it before for ext3 and FAT32, but I don't recall if it can handle NTFS.

 

Gparted can do NTFS.

 

You'll notice virtually no difference at all if you even do notice any difference when running your applications from a different partition, Windows only starts grinding to a halt if its own Windows folder gets rammed to the gills with files and I have no idea if Vista even suffers from that little problem.

In my experience with Vista it'll only "allow" you to create an extended partition on a disc that already has three primary partitions, the next partition you create will be a forced extended partition.

 

I think conventional wisdom calls for OS and programs on the same partition, data on another.

 

I would think that you will get better performance by keeping OS and programs on one partition and defragging on a regular basis. Consider opening a Word document with your proposed scheme. First, the OS needs to access its own partition to open the program. Then it moves to the programs partition to access the installed components. Then it accesses the document on its separate partition. Only it isn't really a linear process: the drive is jumping back and forth between three partitions which are spread out over more of the drive than if you had two partitions and kept them in optimized.

 

Cool; I'll keep that in mind in the future.

I know the difference isn't that much, but why not try to make is less?

Oh, and I'm running XP (see my sig).

Good point - it would be jumping farther than it would have to with my scheme. Obviously they'd be spread out somewhat anyways, but not necessarily all the way across the disk. But so long as I kept everything that opened at startup on one partition, it should nonetheless keep startup times, at least, low.

I think I'll leave it this way, though, since it's big programs that tend to take the longest time to start up anyways. I doubt I'll notice a 15 ms jump vs. a 5 ms one, even if it occurs multiple tiems, but if a 1 GB program is starting up, 55 MB/s vs. 50 MB/s saves 1.8 seconds - still perhaps not noticeable, but at least a much greater time savings.

And I figured out the extended partition problem - turns out the partition at the end of my drive was already an extended partition for some reason :wallbash:. Now that I've moved its data and deleted it I have the option of creating an extended partition.