partition?

[newtroncv]

i recently had to mess around with the fdisk and the partitions on my comp to install windows xp i had no idea what i was doin i ended up deleting a partition and creating a new one and soemthing about nfts. it all worked out in the end but i would liek to know what the hell a partiton is and whats it purpose.

thank you

[grasshopperbe]

i dont know the "technicals" about partitions myself, but using it isnt that hard.

a partition in itself is what you see as for example c: on your explorer. when one has more partitions there come a lot of extra drive letters there ( i have from c: to i:, 5 partitions and 2 cdrom drive letters)
when you buy a new hd to set it up as your first hd, it needs at least one primary partition, this has a little bit of data at the
'beginning' so that the pc knows to boot up from there. it can take the whole space of your hd , so you just have one large partition with the size of the entire drive. making extended partitions is also necessary when you place 2 hd's or more in your pc.

more partitions can be made by making logical or extended partitions . this has several advantages : easier for defragmentation, to save files when the os needs to be reinstalled or so , ...
the thing with ntfs, it is how the hd keeps register of where all data is kept.
Up to win98se, the filing system was fat32 which means something like file allocation table 32bit.
NTFS, which is used with NT, 2k, xp means new technology filing system i believe.
the main difference is that in fat32 files can get split over different parts of the hd, while ntfs keeps an entire file at one place.
to make or modify partitions, partition magic is a very good program,
hope this can make it somewhat clearer

ps here are some links on the topic

http://www.computerhope.com/fdiskhlp.htm
for fdisk
http://www.computerhope.com/software/pm.htm
partition magic
http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/E164D26EAF504FE1CA256DAB000299ED
a bit techy guide to fat32 partitions
http://fdisk.radified.com/fdisk_02.htm
other guide

[newtroncv]

thanks