Windows 10 My PC has 6 drives

[voyager]

I am in the process of cleaning and neatening up my PC.

My PC has 6 drives:
(C - Primary - M.2 - 1TB O.S. Drive - 3 Win Install partitions
(D - Primary - SSD - 1TB Installation Drive - 1 Partition
(E - Primary - HDD - 2TB Data Drive - 1 Partition
(F - Primary - HDD - 2TB Data Drive - 1 Partition
(G - Primary - HDD - 4TB Data Drive - 1 Partition
(H - Logical - HDD - 2TB Data Drive - 1 Partition

C: & D: need to be Primary & Active because of the OS and installed applications.

My conceen is with drives (E, (F and (G.
They're DATA drives and have no need to be active primary drives or partitions.
I would like to convert them to being logical, but worry about DATA loss.

Can they be converted to logical without DATA loss?

 

[Neemobeer]

There is literally no reason to covert them to logical drives.

 

[voyager]

I see that there is.
A primary drive/partition can be made active, which these already are.
Which tells me that actions can be initiated from them as in drives C: and D:, by installed apps.
By everything as I understand, malware and other things could be installed there and be active.
If they're logical they should be inert.

 

[Neemobeer]

Untrue, malware can just as easily install on any of those drives and run; however, most malware generally installs in well-known locations. The only meaningful reason to use primary vs logical is that Windows needs to be installed on a primary partition.

 

[voyager]

OK, I think I may be beginning to understand why I'm having so much trouble trying to convert drives E/ thru G/ to being Logical drives.

MBR drives, D/: and H/: can have both primary and logical partitions.
C/:, E/:, F/:, and G/: are GPT drives.
Their 1st partition must be primary.
C/: requires primary because of the OS.
I set D/: as primary because of plans to install applications there rather than on C/:.
E/:, F/:, and G/: have a single partition and are GPT.
H/: is MBR allowing it to have its single partition to be logical.
Don't know how clear that is to everyone else, but I understand it.

I may not like it.
But, I now understand that's how the world works.

 

[Neemobeer]

Having an extended partition allows you to create 1 or more logical partitions, this was/is a way to overcome the 4 partition limit on an MBR disk. GPT can handle 128 partitions so doesn't have the limitation and no reason for having logical partitions.