this question has likely been posited many times but i don't know the key words to search for it so it is being posted yet again. suppose i have six partitions on C:\ ... say W7; XP; one Linux; one FreeDos; and two data partitions. and suppose this computer has died and the replacement computer's C:\ comes with W8. i want to place the aforesaid six partions onto the replacement computer's C:\, in addition to the W8. what is the procedure?
You must lose one of the active partitions, as from what little I know, only 4 active ones are possible... Is that correct, guys?
Easy fix: Take the existing drive from the dead computer, plug it as a secondary drive on the new computer, then perform necessary steps [outside scope of my answer] to make the existing partitions bootable. Probably your BIOS has a boot selection where you can tell it to boot from the second drive. I know it doesn't answer the question as presented but it is a method that will work.
If you format a drive as a GPT (Guid Partition Table) there are no limitations on the number of partitions!
Yes, I'm pretty sure. Let me do a little research and I'll post tomorrow. The GPT format has a minimum of 128 partitions allowed. The partition table doesn't really care about MBR other than to say that that a particular partition is an MBR type. That said, I still want to research it a little more.
That is indeed true about GPT having unlimited partitions; however another truth about GPT is that it isn't recognized by older operating systems the OP may be wishing to install.
You are correct, but it is supported by XP, Vista and Win 7/8. I believe you must have a 64b OS too. I'm not sure what other OSs' are supported.
Actually, it is simple, since you only need 4 active partitions, for your 4 OSs... Data partitions should be "extended" partitions to one of the primary partitions with an OS on them. Just make sure that the whole partition with data is shared, within that system, I guess... Linux will see Win but Win sees Lin with difficulty, so extend an XP and W7 partitions, I suppose, with data partitions and voila... And delete the 100MB partition for W7. No need. From my experience - I am but a lay person in IT terms... I used EaseUS Partition Master Home 9.1.1 for the last task. Easy-peasy. Freeware. God luck!
unless something has changed... if you want more than 4 partitions you can only have 3 "active" partitions (that windows can boot from) and an "extended" partition that is broken up into "logical" partitions. (which you can have a bunch of) that being said, windows can be tricked into booting from a logical partition although it can cause windows to confuse itself as to where the active system partition is. (sometimes) something else to keep in mind, if you use the partitioning tool on the "install disk" for win7 to partition the h/drive, xp and older os's will not recognize the partitions because of the way the tool handles sectors on the hard drive. the partitioning app in disk management inside of win7 works like xp's does. (normal) xp's install disk partitioning tool does it the same way the windows internal app does. maybe m/soft did this to discourage dual booting with legacy os's so we would buy the newer stuff. it's my understanding that the install disk for vista is the same way as win7's is. also if you use the install disk to partition the drive, it will put the 100 MB "hidden" partition in that houses some of the boot files that can really screw your day up if you don't know the hidden partition is there. michael clyde RemembeR - "if you don't play well with others, you could end up playing with yourself"
Then What is the solution ? Should he rebuild the partition ? In that case he will lose all data . I want to know this also please answer soon . Sara Chaudhry
lingo: 6 partitions on c:\ = ? afaik, c:\ is a partition, if the drive has only 1 partition... ie c:\, then it will need to be partitioned up. you can have more than 1 os on the same partition although i avoid that scenario. i would image the single os with acronis (i use enterprise server edition) then use gparted to split up the drive like i wanted then put the image back then get "easy bcd" boot program to handle multi booting because xp will wipe out vista, w7 & w8's bootloader and vise-versa. easy bcd explains the proper order to install each system. it's free and works with windows and linux partitions i believe. hope this helps, michael clyde NOTE TO OP: i don't know about linux but, afaik, xp x64 (and maybe all xp os) does not support gpt (guid partition tables) as in 129 primary partitions, you must use mbr partition table, as in 4 primary partitions max. or 3 hot and 1 not, as i described earlier. i guess you know that each partition on a hard drive gets 10% slower than the partition preceding it. (just on mech. drives) so if you have 4 hot partitions, d0p1, d0p2, d0p3 and d0p4, d0p2 is 10% slower than d0p1, d0p3 is 10% slower than d0p2 (20% slower than d0p1) and it gets worse as you can see. imo, a couple of drives for booting 4 os (2 each) is better, you keep the os's on the outside edge of the disk where it's spinning faster and data or pics or whatever toward the inside of the disk where it's turning slower. it's all about seek times, more or less.