On 1 Apr 2002, at 18:30, A&C Thompson wrote:

> 1.) Must I create a primary dos partition on the 60gig, if so, how
> big is necessary? ( Fat32 won't support smaller than 512 MB - is
> that correct, and does that mean it must be at least that big? )
> It already contains a primary dos partition - there are no other
> partitions - that partition uses the entire 60 gigs.

  At the moment, the primary DOS partition on this drive shows up as
D:.  If you reformat it to no longer have a primary DOS partition.
its logical drives will come after those on the 40GB drive, and the
logical drives that are curently E:...whatever will all move up one
letter.


> 2.) Must I create an extended dos partition just so I can create
> logical drives within it, or can I create logical drives within the
> primary dos partition? Do I leave the primary dos partition on the
> 40gig drive set to active? Do I need an active partition on the
> 60gig? If so, which?

  A primary DOS partition is a single logical drive.  A drive can
only have four "top level" partitions; if you want more, or you want
them to come after the rest of the logical drives on the 40GB, then
you will need an extended DOS partition.

> 3.) How will the drive letters be affected - right now the new drive contains C, E, F, G, & H and
> the old drive is D.

  I'm sure this is in the list archives, but the order goes:

1.  First primary DOS partition on first drive.

2.  First primary DOS partition on second drive.

3.  Logical drives within extended DOS partition on first drive.

4.  Logical drives within extended DOS partition on second drive.

5.  Remaining primary DOS partition(s) on first drive.

...

  At the moment, you have partitions in steps 1, 2, and 3.  If you
get rid of the partition at step 2, the ones from step 3 will all
move up one letter.

> Hypothetically, what would happen to my cdrom and dvd drive letters if I used all the letters for
> logical partitions?

  That will depend on whether you've explicitly set them, or let the
system assign them.

> 4.) Finally, can I set the drive letters for my cdrom and dvd
> drives as I want them? If so, how?

  The exact mechanics depend on the OS.  In 9X, it's done in the
Device Manager, in NT/2000 it's done through the Drive Manager or the
"Administrative Tools" control panel.

David Gillett

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