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Re: Primary And Extended Partition



On Wed, Oct 03, 2007 at 07:49:28AM -0700, Simbarashe Mhondiwa wrote:
> I am having a difficult on the following issue. I am having a
> difficult in fully explaining thwe difference between primary
> partition and extended partition would you please add more light to it
> for me please.  Hope to hear from you so soon!

The i386 BIOS 'standard' only recognises four partitions.  They are now
called primary partitions.  The BIOS can only find boot-blocks in the
boot record of either the whole disk or those four partitions.  

To meet the need for more partitions, there are 'extended' partitions
that the BIOS knows nothing about.  They all exist in one primary
partition.  MSDOS started it and Windows and Linux inherited it for
mutual compatibility.  

They are analogous but incompatible with the BSD disklable system that
puts 'partitions/disklables' within one primary partition.

Doug.



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