I need to choose a partition type

[357mag]

I need to format my second hard drive, and the first question XP asks me is to choose either from an extended partition or a primary partition. The only thing I will be using this second hard drive for is to store a ghost image of my computer(everything on my C drive). So I think I would need to choose primary right?

If I change my mind and choose to put the swap file on my second hard drive, then would it be better for me to choose extended initially? I have 1 GB of RAM so I don't really know if even moving the swap file to another hard drive would cause a noticeable increase in performance.

[kram 2.0]

If booting is not involved in the drive, it does not matter what type of partition you decide on. Primary partitions have the advantage of being able to boot. Extended partitions, along with another primary partition in its own physics drive, can spawn multiple "volumes", or logical drives, within it. I suggest you go ahead with a primary partition if that is your only partition on the physical drive.

kram

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by 357mag I need to format my second hard drive, and the first question XP asks me is to choose either from an extended partition or a primary partition. The only thing I will be using this second hard drive for is to store a ghost image of my computer(everything on my C drive). So I think I would need to choose primary right?

Whenever I install a second hard drive I create an extended partition and then create the logical drives within the extended partition. The reason I do this is because the drive lettering will just continue with the next available letter. If you make it a primary partition and you have multiple partitions on the first hard drive, the first partition on the second hard drive will become D: and the partition that was D: on your first hard drive will become E:...it just gets messy. You can always redo the drive lettering through Disk Management later, but it can get confusing if you aren't familiar with the process.

Originally Posted by 357mag If I change my mind and choose to put the swap file on my second hard drive, then would it be better for me to choose extended initially? I have 1 GB of RAM so I don't really know if even moving the swap file to another hard drive would cause a noticeable increase in performance.

Don't bother moving the swap file. That used to work with Win9x computers that usually had less than 32MB of RAM, but it's not as big a deal with WinXP and 1GB of RAM.

Cricket