Operation Manual

Hard Disk And Operating System
Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000–2005
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A.4 Primary Partitions
A primary hard disk partition can contain the operating system, applications and
user data (files). Only one primary partition can be set as active in a given PC
session.
Most operating systems can boot from a primary partition only.
If you want to use several operating systems, you might have to create several
primary partitions.
A.5 Extended Partitions
The extended hard disk partition was developed as a way to avoid the four-
primary-partitions limit. The extended partition is used only for creating a desired
number of logical partitions.
An extended partition does not contain any data directly.
A.6 Logical Partitions
An extended partition can be divided into any number of logical partitions; these
are similar to primary partitions in that they can contain operating systems,
applications and user data.
Primary partitions should be used for booting operating systems, system files
and folders.
Logical partitions can contain any other information, as they are accessible by
most operating systems.
If you need several operating systems, you should use logical partitions for
booting purposes and leave primary partitions free.
A.7 Formatting Hard Disks
Within each of the partitions, information has to be organized in a way
understandable to the operating system using that partition. This organization is
the file system.
As a rule, a formatting program performs the following functions:
• It creates the boot record
• It creates the file allocation table (FAT)
• It identifies and marks bad clusters on the disk so they are not ever used
afterwards