Activate a partition in XP pro.

[red_I]

While installing OS, I partitioned the HD to 20+60. 20G as primary partition and later go back activate the remaining 60G. The reason for doing this is due my cd-rom. Which took little longer to come. So, I borrowed a cd-rom from another machine and proceeded with OS installing. So that I can have proper naming for all my drives.

Now, everything is running smoothly, I want go back and activate the 60G partition. And install all the fun stuff.

My question/s is
1. What type of partion should this be primary/extended,..... This partition will be used for storing data, software, games etc.

How do I do it on XP Pro.?

Thanks.
Red_i

[David_Jones]

You could make it an extended DOS in FAT32 format, but you could also go for NTFS.

Which format is the 20Gb partition? Perhaps make them both the same for simplicity, although it isn't a critical issue.

You can also have multiple logical drives in the extended DOS partition if you want.

I like having a 'spare' drive for ghosting the primary OS partition over to, so you could always set aside space for that.

Options, options, options.....

HTH,

David.

[reboot]

To actually DO it, open Explorer, select the drive, right click and select Format (or it may open a window telling you it's not formatted yet, and what do you want to do?). Format it however you like.
The other option, is to boot to a Win98 startup disk, run fdisk, and create any number of logical drives in the extended partition, then restart to XP, open Explorer (see above...)

[Briab Guy]

Primary partition is used for a partition to boot to. Multi OS.

I would take some consideration into what file sys I was using.
You could run into trouble later if you mix them up. NTFS is probably the better of the two you will be picking from.

[Tom Brodrick]

You can't do this through Explorer. It has to be done through Disk Administrator unless you want to use F-disk. My recommendation is, Right click on My Computer, click Manage. Open Disk Management, then you'll see the C drive, and a big section of unallocated space. You can format the remaining space and call it your D-drive. Right click on the unallocated space, click Format, then follow the wizard. I'd go with NTFS on all drives unless you are dual-booting with 9x :-p
With Disk Management, you can re-letter any disk other than your C-drive.
If you want, you can convert you whole disk to a Dynamic disk and then extend your C-drive. I've got my disks converted to Dynamic disks which give more fexibility. I was able to combine two of my three U-SCSI 160 drives into a single volume so they look like one drive.

[reboot]

Tom, if the accout you log in under has admin priveledges (XP Pro or Win2k) then you CAN do it via Explorer. XP Home doesn't care.
I have done it three ways, via fdisk, via admin tools, disk management, and via Explorer, depending on how the primary active partition was set up in the first place.