max no. of windows partitions?

autoexec · 7th December 2003, 10:44 AM

hello
i was wondering what the maximum number of drive partitions windows could handle. and if bigger than 26, what would happen to the drive letters

or is there something else limiting the number?

bmgoau · 7th December 2003, 1:27 PM

i dont think any one has tried doing that i guess the drives are just not recognized by the OS.

phoen8x · 7th December 2003, 2:37 PM

don't think you can get more drive letters than our english alphbetas.
Use software raid if you want combine them.

kasi · 8th December 2003, 8:00 AM

Interesting question. I've had a little read about this and this is what I've found.
It depends what version of Windows you are using and what file system. Also there are different kinds of partitions such as primary, extended, basic, dynamic.
26 letters in the alphabet limit the number of partitions, but you can expand that even further by mounting hard drives to folders within NTFS.
Windows 2000 and XP use a new partitioning scheme. It is a complete replacement for the MSDOS style partitions. It stores its information in a 1MiB journalled database at the end of the physical disk. The size of partitions is limited only by disk space. The maximum number of partitions is nearly 2000.
Any partitions created under the Logical Disk Manager are called Dynamic Disks. There are no longer any primary or extended partitions. Normal MSDOS style partitions are now known as Basic Disks.
There is also the newer partition style (used on Itanium architecture-based computers only) that stores partition information in the globally unique identifier (GUID) partition table (GPT). The older style stores information in the master boot record (MBR). With GPT, you can create more partitions and larger volumes, and take advantage of other benefits.
Partition Styles
On master boot record (MBR) disks, you can create up to four primary partitions per disk, or you can create up to three primary partitions and one extended partition. Within the extended partition, you can create unlimited logical drives.
On GUID partition table (GPT) disks, you can create up to 128 primary partitions. Because GPT disks do not limit you to four partitions, you do not need to create extended partitions or logical drives.

7th December 2003, 10:44 AM	#1
autoexec Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Sydney Posts: 825	max no. of windows partitions? hello i was wondering what the maximum number of drive partitions windows could handle. and if bigger than 26, what would happen to the drive letters or is there something else limiting the number? __________________ All misspellings and grammatical errors are intentional and part of my artistic expression.

7th December 2003, 1:27 PM	#2
bmgoau Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 188	i dont think any one has tried doing that i guess the drives are just not recognized by the OS. __________________ BMgoau

8th December 2003, 8:00 AM	#4
kasi Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Central Coast NSW Posts: 1,241	Interesting question. I've had a little read about this and this is what I've found. It depends what version of Windows you are using and what file system. Also there are different kinds of partitions such as primary, extended, basic, dynamic. 26 letters in the alphabet limit the number of partitions, but you can expand that even further by mounting hard drives to folders within NTFS. Windows 2000 and XP use a new partitioning scheme. It is a complete replacement for the MSDOS style partitions. It stores its information in a 1MiB journalled database at the end of the physical disk. The size of partitions is limited only by disk space. The maximum number of partitions is nearly 2000. Any partitions created under the Logical Disk Manager are called Dynamic Disks. There are no longer any primary or extended partitions. Normal MSDOS style partitions are now known as Basic Disks. There is also the newer partition style (used on Itanium architecture-based computers only) that stores partition information in the globally unique identifier (GUID) partition table (GPT). The older style stores information in the master boot record (MBR). With GPT, you can create more partitions and larger volumes, and take advantage of other benefits. Partition Styles On master boot record (MBR) disks, you can create up to four primary partitions per disk, or you can create up to three primary partitions and one extended partition. Within the extended partition, you can create unlimited logical drives. On GUID partition table (GPT) disks, you can create up to 128 primary partitions. Because GPT disks do not limit you to four partitions, you do not need to create extended partitions or logical drives. Last edited by kasi; 8th December 2003 at 8:50 AM.

7th December 2003, 2:37 PM	#3
phoen8x Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Land of OZ Posts: 1,182	don't think you can get more drive letters than our english alphbetas. Use software raid if you want combine them.