1. You are viewing our forum as a guest. For full access please Register. WindowsBBS.com is completely free, paid for by advertisers and donations.

Resolved SSD drive and SATA HDD are both Primary

Discussion in 'Windows 7' started by masonite, 2013/01/01.

  1. 2013/01/01
    masonite

    masonite Well-Known Member Thread Starter

    Joined:
    2002/09/02
    Messages:
    445
    Likes Received:
    1
    Hi all (and a happy New Year) :)

    Just built a customer's PC using a 60G Intel SSD and a Samsung 1TB Sata HDD. I don't use SSD drives too often so I've a few questions for WinBBS boffins.

    I installed W7 Ultimate to the SSD drive and it went hitchlessly.

    The 1TB drive was connected and powered up during the install but of course, it wasn't recognized by the system because it was labeled as 'unallocated'.

    So I used the native Disk Management process to make it visible ('Quick format' option) and to my surprise there was no option to set it up as a 'logical' drive.

    Consequently, I now have two 'Primary' volumes.

    There don't seem to be any spanners in the works - the system boots in a normal way - but I'd always thought that an OS would only tolerate one Primary volume, the Boot drive.

    That's my first question.

    The second question: There's commentary here and there online that seems to hint at the possibility of having 'boot' files on the SSD, but with the main Windows files on the SATA HDD. Anyone able to comment on this?

    As I said, the system seems to work OK, so I'm not bothered if two primary drives are normal. Only the SSD is marked as 'Active', BTW.

    BTW also, I labeled the 1TB SATA HDD with the letter 'S' and renamed it 'Storage' so my customer knows to plonk everything on it instead of on the 'C' drive, the SSD.

    Thanks for reading this.
    Cheers :)
     
    masonite,
    #1
  2. 2013/01/02
    SpywareDr

    SpywareDr SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

    Joined:
    2005/12/31
    Messages:
    3,752
    Likes Received:
    338
    One Primary partition on each drive is normal.

    How to move "My Documents" in Windows 7
    (So that the customer doesn't have to try and remember how to save all of their stuff to some "x:\whatever" folder).
     
    SpywareDr,
    #2


  3. to hide this advert.

  4. 2013/01/02
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

    Joined:
    2001/12/27
    Messages:
    15,174
    Likes Received:
    412
    Read my article: Optimize Windows 7 for use with a Solid State Drive (SSD)
     
    Arie,
    #3
  5. 2013/01/02
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

    Joined:
    2002/01/18
    Messages:
    9,072
    Likes Received:
    400
    You can have 4 primary partitions per drive. I always use primary partitions. I haven't had a need to use extended partitions since Windows 98. (original fdisk had size limitations)

    Windows Vista and above can be installed onto any partition so long as the boot files are on the first primary partition in the drive. Most oem systems come with a boot partition, a fat32 recovery partition and the OS partition, all primary.

    I never install that way, I always partition the drive using another computer or a disk partitioner boot disk first (gparted). That way Windows will put the boot files in the same partition as the OS. If not, by default, Windows will create a small boot partition. All files on one partition makes it easier to make disk images of the OS partition and it is easier to recover from corruption if it occurs.
     
    TonyT,
    #4
  6. 2013/01/02
    masonite

    masonite Well-Known Member Thread Starter

    Joined:
    2002/09/02
    Messages:
    445
    Likes Received:
    1
    SpywareDr: Thanks for the useful link.

    Arie: Thanks for the excellent tutorial. I'll keep the printout in my workbench 'build' collection.

    TonyT: Thanks - most interesting. Re your method of using a partitioning app on the empty drive, I can see the merits. I guess the way I did my customer's install, with the unallocated 1TB drive temporarily out of the loop, would have had the same effect, wouldn't it? Like, with the boot files going to the OS partition.

    Just took a look at the setup of C in Disk Management and it shows:
    System Reserved:
    100MB NTFS (System,Active,Primary Partition)

    Local Disk (C)
    55.80GB NTFS (Boot,Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)

    Now, must take a closer look at Arie's tutor before I deliver the PC.

    BTW: Last thing I need to do is transfer his old computer's Outlook 2003 PST files into his new Outlook 2007 setup. Is there likely to be any incompatibility between the 2003 and 2007 PST versions?
    Cheers :)
     
    masonite,
    #5
  7. 2013/01/02
    JSS3rd Lifetime Subscription

    JSS3rd Geek Member

    Joined:
    2002/06/28
    Messages:
    2,221
    Likes Received:
    27
    Tony ...

    I don't mean to hijack the thread, but what's the advantage of having all partitions (assuming four) on a drive be primary, rather than one primary and three logical?
     
    JSS3rd,
    #6
  8. 2013/01/03
    SpywareDr

    SpywareDr SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

    Joined:
    2005/12/31
    Messages:
    3,752
    Likes Received:
    338

    Nope, imports as you would expect.


    Microsoft Office Support: Create and use .pst data files in different versions of Outlook > Open .pst files in Outlook Office Outlook 2007
     
    SpywareDr,
    #7
  9. 2013/01/03
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

    Joined:
    2002/01/18
    Messages:
    9,072
    Likes Received:
    400
    Logical drives must be made "inside" an extended partition. I have often installed a second version of Windows on the same drive for a dual boot or even a triple boot. If you have 1 primary and the rest are logicals inside an extended, then you must blow away the entire extended in order to create another primary. That means having to copy all their data to another drive first.

    I've also found it easier to recover data from drives with multiple primaries than from drives with extended partitions. If the drives's master file table gets corrupted then all of the logicals in the extended can be "lost" to the operating system, and using recovery software takes longer.
     
    TonyT,
    #8
  10. 2013/01/03
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

    Joined:
    2002/01/18
    Messages:
    9,072
    Likes Received:
    400
    The way I do it there is no "System Reserved" partition.
    On my 500 GB drive with 2 partitions it looks like this in Disk Mgmt:

    Win8Pro (C:)
    48.83 GB NTFS
    Healthy (System,Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)

    Data (D:)
    416.93 GB NTFS
    Healthy (Primary Partition)
     
    TonyT,
    #9
  11. 2013/01/03
    masonite

    masonite Well-Known Member Thread Starter

    Joined:
    2002/09/02
    Messages:
    445
    Likes Received:
    1
    TonyT: I see what you mean. So if I'd done it your way I could've avoided the loss of the 100MB that was allocated to the 'System Reserved' partition?

    Which'd be all the better on an SSD drive. Good call, I'll try that next time.

    I seem to recall I used to do something like that back in the days of W98, but I started fooling around with drive cloning apps like Acronis's MigrateEasy, and it was seductively simpler to create a master drive with all tweaks, then clone it to an 'unallocated' bare metal HDD and insert a new key, than go through all the drama of setting up a new system from scratch.

    SpywareDr: Thanks for that info on Outlook. I've only recently started using it myself so I'm not in full sync with its tweaks.

    Thanks guys :)
     
    masonite,
    #10
  12. 2013/01/04
    SpywareDr

    SpywareDr SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

    Joined:
    2005/12/31
    Messages:
    3,752
    Likes Received:
    338
    You're more than welcome. :)

    --

    Please mark your thread as 'Resolved'.
     
    SpywareDr,
    #11
  13. 2013/01/28
    JSS3rd Lifetime Subscription

    JSS3rd Geek Member

    Joined:
    2002/06/28
    Messages:
    2,221
    Likes Received:
    27
    If I understand you correctly, you're saying that in order to convert a logical partition to a primary, you must delete the logical and create the primary from scratch.

    Acronis Disk Director allows you to that directly, without any loss of data. I just converted the logical partitions on my two drives to primary partitions in a matter of a couple of minutes ... it took that long only because a reboot was required.
     
    JSS3rd,
    #12
  14. 2013/01/30
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

    Joined:
    2002/01/18
    Messages:
    9,072
    Likes Received:
    400
    Yes, but you cannot do that using Windows, you need the 3rd party program to do it, as you did.
     
    TonyT,
    #13
    Howattee likes this.

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Accept Learn More...