Windows 7 What are all of these hidden partitions?

[BudoBaka]

This is a 1TB HD with Win 7 pre-installed on a 100GB partition (C and a remaining 809GB or 811GB depending on what I use to look at it on a second partition (D.

I would like to partition the remaining 811GB (D however I ran into a confusing snag. Even though Windows shows only 2 partitions,when I run my partition manager it shows that there are 4 partitions!!!

100MiB NTFS, 101GiB NTFS, (extended) 809.65GiB,sda5 809.65GiB NTFS.

I am VERY confused and I have attached a photo in the hopes someone can help me. I am not sure which partition(s) I should be dealing? I only want to use the D: partition which shouldn't have any Win7 related files, system or otherwise, on it.

I have attached a photo if it helps to make what I am saying clearer.

Link Removed due to 404 Error

Thank You for your assistance.

 

[Drew]

Bit hard to see cus of the flash on the camera... should just take a Screen Shot, in future.

Anyway, no real mystery... from what I can tell, you have a System Drive, another Drive, could be treated as Data Drive, the Samsung Recovery Partion & Win7's little 100MB partition. Use the 1st 2... leave the 100MB alone & leave the Recovery Parition alone... ya might need it someday; other than that, don't worry about them or let seeing them there bother you. Just carry one concerned w/ C:\ & D:\

Cheers,
Drew

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

SDA1,2,3 and 4 are primary partitions. I know in the past Windows could only use 4 primary partitions, so if you wanted to use more you would have to make an extended partition then make more under that partition. So if you wanted 10, then you would make 4 primary then an extended and 6 partitions under the extended. SDA1 is the boot for 7, where the boot.ini and dos.sys is located. SDA4 is the recovory partition. SDA2 looks to be the C: partition. SDA 3 and SDA5 looks to be a mirrored D: drive. Like RAID, but on a single drive. Not sure why, but that is what it looks like.

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

Wait I was wrong about that. SDA3 is the extended, and SDA5 is the D: drive. Sorry I got confused there for a second. But the rest is right.

 

[Drew]

No, it's probably a laptop. It's very common, certainly w/ many makes & models, that they come partitioned... a Sys Drive w/ the OS & a Data drive.

Besides the Sys & Data drives the others don't show, except in Disc Manager. Also, there is a setting for whether drives are 'hidden' or not. Clicking on Computer, there is no really need to (always) 'see' anything but , the Sys & Data drives.

Best not to have explanations overly complicated for people.

Drew

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

I am just really big on informing people what I know. Most people want me to give them a 3 second answer to the question what is an OS. Then I loose them after the first 2 minutes of talking about what an OS is.

People look at me strange when I can talk for hours about computer and technology. It is one of the things that is missing out of my life that I really want. The conversations. But enough about my hurt feelers.

I will try to keep my answers shorter and more general.

 

[Drew]

N,

Not meaning to hurt your feelings. Just some folks are not @ a level to need or understand deep, detailed comments. Conversation is great (enjoy that myself, too) but, don't want to overwhelm ppl or lose them during the answer or created more questions than answers w/ the answer.

We tackle it as we go. Yes, I know, ppl will say "my hard drive", meaning tower or Computer not, really, talking about their HDD, @ all. Ask what Operating System, they'll tell you it's HP. Yes, they need answers & explanations but, not information overload.

Things typed, w/out tonality & facial expression get misconstruded often. Mearly giving constructive critism to help not, hurt.

Cheers,
Drew

 

[BudoBaka]

Bit hard to see cus of the flash on the camera... should just take a Screen Shot, in future.

Anyway, no real mystery... from what I can tell, you have a System Drive, another Drive, could be treated as Data Drive, the Samsung Recovery Partion & Win7's little 100MB partition. Use the 1st 2... leave the 100MB alone & leave the Recovery Parition alone... ya might need it someday; other than that, don't worry about them or let seeing them there bother you. Just carry one concerned w/ C:\ & D:\

Cheers,
Drew

Sorry about the flash. There were two more photos below that one without it that were clearer. Not sure if you saw them.

 

[BudoBaka]

SDA1,2,3 and 4 are primary partitions. I know in the past Windows could only use 4 primary partitions, so if you wanted to use more you would have to make an extended partition then make more under that partition. So if you wanted 10, then you would make 4 primary then an extended and 6 partitions under the extended. SDA1 is the boot for 7, where the boot.ini and dos.sys is located. SDA4 is the recovory partition. SDA2 looks to be the C: partition. SDA 3 and SDA5 looks to be a mirrored D: drive. Like RAID, but on a single drive. Not sure why, but that is what it looks like.

Thank you all for the assistance. I prefer as much detail as possible so don't worry.

So let me see if I understand what is being said.

sda1 is the boot partition for Windows 7.
sda2 is the partition that would be listed as the C: drive in windows.
sda3 is an extended partition in which the remainder of my disc space is allocated.
sda5 is mirroring sda3 (for some reason) and would be seen as the D: drive in windows.
sda4 is the recovery partition for Samsung.

So I am looking at 4 PRIMARY partitions (sda1,sda2,sda3,sda4) and 1 Logical partition (sda5).

So if I want to partition further and not lose my Win7 installation or Recovery partition I should only use the space available on sda3 (extended) and sda5? Those would be what is listed as the D: drive in Windows 7?

Thanks

 

[BudoBaka]

yes it is a laptop

 

[Saltgrass]

It all gets confusing, but yes you have 3 primary partitions, Windows System, Windows OS and Samsung Recovery. The Fourth is an extended partition with a logical partition in it.

As was mentioned, Windows can only handle 4 primary partitions. If you have 3 primary partitions and try to make a fourth, if the new partition does not use all the remaining space, a logical partition will be offered.

Most of us are more familiar with the terminology used in the Windows Disk Management. It is also very easy to use the snipping tool to take a picture then attach using the paperclip in the Advanced answers.

 

[whs]

So I am looking at 4 PRIMARY partitions (sda1,sda2,sda3,sda4) and 1 Logical partition (sda5).

Something is wrong here. You cannot have 4 primaries and 1 extended. As soon as you try to create a 5th partition if 4 primaries are present, you get dynamics.

Why don't you post a proper snip of your full disk management window so that we can see what's going on. Those pics are useless.

 

[Joe S]

Dell is a big offender of using up all of the primary partitions. I've seen a lot of people complaining about them.
Joe

 

[whs]

Dell is a big offender of using up all of the primary partitions. I've seen a lot of people complaining about them.
Joe

But that's easy to fix. Just need to have a look at the disk management.

 

[Saltgrass]

Lets get back to the original question.

Since SDA5 is a logical partition, you can remove or resize it and add as many other logical partitions as you like inside the extended partition. If you want to use the entire space for only one partition, you could delete the extended partition and make a primary partition in its place, but that would be the last partition, or just leave it like it is.

 

[whs]

Again, as long as we have not seen his disk management page, we are guessing in the dark. If he really has 4 primaries plus 1 addl. partition on this disk, I suspect that the partitions have been converted to dynamics - and that would not be a good scenario.

 

[BudoBaka]

Something is wrong here. You cannot have 4 primaries and 1 extended. As soon as you try to create a 5th partition if 4 primaries are present, you get dynamics.

Why don't you post a proper snip of your full disk management window so that we can see what's going on. Those pics are useless.

No that was a question I was asking based on the initial answers provided. I forgot the question mark. Sorry about that.

I don't understand how the information in any partition manager can be useless given that it shows exactly what is going on with a disk. Nothing is hidden.What will the disk management tool show that it doesnt and where is it? As I indicated before when I look in windows it only shows 2 partitions. C and D.

Replying from cell so when back on pc will post the snippet.

 

[Saltgrass]

It is showing correctly. D is the logical partition.

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

Thank you all for the assistance. I prefer as much detail as possible so don't worry.

So let me see if I understand what is being said.

sda1 is the boot partition for Windows 7.
sda2 is the partition that would be listed as the C: drive in windows.
sda3 is an extended partition in which the remainder of my disc space is allocated.
sda5 is mirroring sda3 (for some reason) and would be seen as the D: drive in windows.
sda4 is the recovery partition for Samsung.

So I am looking at 4 PRIMARY partitions (sda1,sda2,sda3,sda4) and 1 Logical partition (sda5).

So if I want to partition further and not lose my Win7 installation or Recovery partition I should only use the space available on sda3 (extended) and sda5? Those would be what is listed as the D: drive in Windows 7?

Thanks

I was wrong about the mirroring, it is not mirrored, but the rest is correct. SDA1, SDA2, SDA3 and SDA4 are standalone partitions. They are all primary partitions. SDA3 is a primary partition, because it can stand alone, though it is classified as an extended because it has the ability to have partitions inside of itself. SDA5 is an extended partition, because it is not stand alone. It is dependent on SDA3 to exsist, because it resides inside SDA3. That is what I see in the pictures that you provided. Did I help any?