Partitions - Physical Locations in HD

jkayca2 · Nov 13, 2004, 05:36 PM

Say I have a hard drive with 3 partitions. I primary partition and 2 logical. Where would they be stored physically on the disk? Would the primary be at the outside of the disk and then the two further in or would it be the other way around?

Judas · Nov 13, 2004, 07:43 PM

usually the first partition to be made is closest to the outer edges....

You can create 2 logical before a primary partition in some cases so it's not always "primary" being at the edges... the only way to be sure is to delete all partitions (DON'T DO THIS IF YOU HAVE FILES ON THERE YOU WANT TO KEEP) and create everything from scratch in the order you wish......

I'm not aware of any program out there that might tell you were exactly what partitions are on the disk....

Vampyromaniac · Nov 13, 2004, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkayca2

Would the primary be at the outside of the disk and then the two further in or would it be the other way around?

That's exactly how it would be by default.
You can check in the Disk Management console in Windows XP/2000.
(Administrative Tools ...> Computer Management ...> Disk Management)
Within each disk, partitions on the left are on the outside tracks, and those toward the right are on the inside tracks.

PangingJr · Nov 13, 2004, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judas

I'm not aware of any program out there that might tell you were exactly what partitions are on the disk....

try "DiskView"
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/misc.shtml
Start Diskview.exe from its home directory. Select a volume
and press the Refresh button.

-----------------------

reread your post, then also D/L the command line tool called.. "DiskExt"

To use open CMD window and go to the DiskExt.exe home directory,
then type DiskExt.exe or DiskExt.exe /? for more info..

you can also put these 2 files in your \WINDOWS\system32 folder
DISKEXT.EXE, DISKEXT.RES
these file are located in a folder called RELEASE of the downloaded zip-file,
so you don't have to navigate within the CMD window to locate the exe.

jkayca2 · Nov 14, 2004, 09:27 AM

Thanks for the info guys. Ctrl-Alt-Del, I'll give those proggies a try.

Matth · Nov 14, 2004, 10:49 AM

Normal ordering would place the primary first (outside, fastest) followed by the others.

As said, it is possible to place them differently by being obtuse in your setup, maybe by moving them with one of the many Partition wrangling tools such as Partitionmagic.

Some operating systems have boot limitations (DOS), and some BIOSes may also have problems with a bootable partition beyand a certain point.