Primary, Extended and Logical Partitions In order to use the
space in a hard disk, it must be partitioned. Partitioning is
the process of dividing the hard disk’s space into pieces, so
they can be prepared for use, or even dedicated to different
uses. Even if the entire disk is intended to be left in one
piece, it must be partitioned so that the operating system knows
that it is intended to be left in one piece. There are many
different considerations that go into deciding how to partition
a hard disk. Each hard disk can contain up to four different
“true” partitions, which are called primary partitions. The
limitation of four is one that is imposed on the system by the
way that the master boot record is structured. Normally, if you
are only using DOS, Windows 3.x or Windows 95, you will have a
single primary partition. Multiple primary partitions can be
used if you want to set your machine up for use by multiple
operating systems. Partitions are also sometimes called volumes,
especially in reference to DOS.