| Home | Hard Disk Information | Data Loss & Data Recovery | Data Recovery Software | Question & Answer |
Microsoft® Windows® operating systems make use of two types of partition: Primary and Extended. A Primary Partition is a hard drive partition capable of supporting a Windows operating system. An Extended Partition is a hard drive partition capable of being subdivided into Logical Drives, designated as the familiar "C:", "D:", "E:", etc., in the Windows operating environment.
Other operating systems, such as UNIX®, Linux and Solaris, use partition formats (file systems) that differ from Windows. Even Windows employs multiple file systems, depending upon the size of the drive, size of a partition on the drive, user preferences, and the version of the operating system.
An interesting feature of hard drive partitioning is the ability to create partitions with differing file systems on the same hard drive. Doing so enables you to conserve hard drive resources or install and run multiple and disparate operating systems on the same hard drive.