Partions & Troubleshooting

8/13/2019 Partions & Troubleshooting

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HARDWARE CONCEPTS

PARTITIONS


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What is a hard disk partition?

When a hard drive is installed in a

computer, it must be partitioned beforeyou can format and use it.

Partitioning a drive is when you divide the

total storage of a drive into differentpieces.

These pieces are called partitions. Once apartition is created, it can then beformatted so that it can be used on acomputer.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial115.htmlhttp://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial115.html


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When partitions are made, you specify thetotal amount of storage that you would

like to allocate to that partition from thetotal size of the drive.

For example, if you have an 80 GB drive, then it

would be possible to make one partitionconsisting of the entire 80 GB of availablestorage.

Alternatively, you could make two partitionsconsisting of a 20 GB partition that will be usedfor the operating systemand programs and a 60GB partition set aside for data, music, andimages.


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In the current IBM PC architecture, there is apartition tablein the drive's Master Boot

Record(section of the hard drive that containsthe commands necessary to start the operatingsystem), or MBR.

The MBR lists information about the partitions

on the hard drive.

This partition table is then further split into 4partition table entries, with each entries

corresponding to a partition. Due to this it is only possible to have four

partitions. These 4 partitions are typicallyknown as primary partitions.


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To overcome this restriction, system developersdecided to add a new type of partition called theextended partition.

This is done by replacing one of the four primarypartitions with an extended partition.

So now we can make an additional 24 logicalpartitionswithin the extended one. The tablebelow illustrates this.

Partition TablePrimary Partition #1Primary Partition #2Primary Partition #3Primary Partition #4 (Extended Partition)

Logical Partition #1Logical Partition #1


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Each hard drive also has one of its

possible 4 partitions flagged as an active

partition. The active partition is a special flag

assigned to only one partition on a hard

drive that the Master Boot Record (MBR)uses to boot your computer into anoperating system.

As only one partition may be set as theactive partition, then how it is possible tohave multiple operating systems installed

on different partitions.


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This is accomplished by installing a bootloaderin the active partition.

When the computer starts, it will read theMBR and determine the partition that isflagged as active.

This partition is the one that contains theboot loader.

When the operating system boots off of

this partition the boot loader will start andallow the user to choose which operatingsystems he would like to boot from.


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Why make partitions WHAT IS THE NEED FOR MULTIPLEPARTITIONS?

There are a few reasons for multiple partitions, they are:1). Multiple File systems:

When you create a partition, you then need to formatit before it can be used.

When formatting a partition you tell the operatingsystem what file systemyou would like that partition

to be formatted in.

Once you format a partition, and therefore assign thetype of file system you want to use with it, you cannot change that file system without formatting the

partition againand losing all the data contained on it.

If you require different file systems on your computer,whether it be for securityor for a specific application,you can then make multiple partition and assign one

type of file system to one of the partitions and anotherto one of the other partitions.


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2). Partition Size :

On older operating systems the maximum size of apartition was limited.

Therefore if there is more storage space on a hard drivethan was usable in a single partition, we need to createother partitions to utilize this unused space.

3).Multiple Operating Systems :

Some operating systems use file systems that are notcompatible with other operating systems.

If we want to use two operating systemson the samecomputer we should make two partitions, one for eachoperating system.

Then a boot loadercould be used to switchbetween themwhen you start your computer.


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4). Wasted disk Space:

When a file systems store data in a partition, the largerthe partition, the greater the chance of wasted space.

By having multiple partitionsof smaller size, we canreduce the amount of waste that file systems maycreate.

5). Separate system files from users files:

Some components of an operating system requirestorage space to operate.

For example,in Windows if there is no hard drive spaceavailable on the drive that Windows is installed on we

will not be able to print. So, by creating a partition solely devoted to the OSand

then another partition dedicated to our own data andprograms, there is less chance of using up the space onthe OS partition with our data, and thus not causing

problems.


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Partions & Troubleshooting