TeraByte Unlimited

Am I counting correctly here?

From disk management I see:

C: boot win7 partition primary
D: logical drive (ext.) part under C:
E: logical drive under c:
Unamed 6mb primary partition (i guess this is the EMBR?)
System Reserved Primary partition 100mb

So from this I guess my four primaries are already used up?

I want to install a 2nd version of windows7 but I am thinking I will have to wipe the first working version to do it OR I will have to unlimit primaries?

Can I install linux on an extended partition and have dual boot capability using bootitbm?

Am I correct?

Thanks for the replies to my earlier related post

If I understand correctly, you have only 3 primaries (logical drives under C: are not partitions). So you can keep "unlimited primaries" disabled.
However, since you have BIBM, you can delete the System Reserved partition, and put the boot files inside the C: drive. That way, you gain one partition entry.
Moreover, if two systems are installed on the same disk with BIBM, it is better to have them hidden between each other (so system2 should be hidden for system1, and vice versa). That way, each System will not take one partition entry for the other. And enable primaries is also not an issue.

Perhaps Eric and I disagree or have different understandings of the original post.

I would interpret the original post to indicate that, yes, four primary partitions currently exist:

1) C:
2) Extended partition containing logical drives (volumes) D: and E:
3) Unamed 6mb primary partition
4) System Reserved Primary partition

So, yes, I would believe that installing a second Windows 7 would require unlimiting primaries.

I don't know what the unnamed primary partition is. Is BIBM installed? If so, that may be what that partition is.

"Can I install linux on an extended partition and have dual boot capability using bootitbm"?

I would word that question "Can Linux be installed on a logical drive (volume) (which would be inside the extended partition)", but I don't use Linux and don't know the answer.

I'm virtually certain Linux could be installed if primaries were unlimited, but I've never done it and don't know the details.

All this assumes, the system is MBR, not UEFI/GPT.

Much thanks To Eric and Bob for their replies. In looking carefully at disk managment readout on win7 it appears that the 4th primary partition which is listed as RAW is actually unused disk space, so I am thinking Eric is correct, I only have 3 used primaries. So I guess the system reserve is for windows recovery and can be safely deleted? That way I will have two primaries not used. The other primaries would be BIBM 6gb and C:bootwin7. Does this sound right?

freddygolightly wrote:
>. So I guess the system reserve is for
> windows recovery and can be safely deleted?

If you do that Win7 will no longer boot as the SRP contains the Win7 booting files.

Can you post a photo of BIBM Partition Work?

Yes, the SRP contains the booting files to boot Windows. You can check into BIBM how it is setup: is it setup to boot this partition, or the Windows partition? If it boots Windows directly, you can delete the SRP.
If it boots the SRP, you must first copy the boot files into Windows (bootmgr and \Boot directory), then delete the SRP, reconfigure the BCD (some partition references have to be changed - you can do that from inside BIBM), and reconfigure BIBM to boot Windows. Three different ways to do that:
- manually,
- using the chgdtype script (it may offer to delete the SRP... ensure the confirmation screen is correct), then changing the setup inside BIBM,
- deleting the SRP manually, using the fixboot script to reconfigure the booting files into Windows, then changing the setup inside BIBM.

Question 4 Eric. How exactly do I determine or what do I look for in BIBM to know whether it's set up to boot from the reserved partition or from windows directly? Thank you.

Well, I don't remember exactly the menu, but, basically, it's in the Boot set-up (or boot menu), select the item that boots Windows (you may have only one item), and check its properties.

freddygolightly wrote:
>'? That way I will have two
> primaries not used. The other primaries would be BIBM 6gb and C:bootwin7.
> Does this sound right?

Ignoring the SRP issues which have already been discussed, unless I'm confused, what is still being overlooked is that the logical drives referred to as D: and E: are inside an extended partition which is a primary partition.

Bob Coleman wrote:
> freddygolightly wrote:
> >'? That way I will have two
> > primaries not used. The other primaries would be BIBM 6gb and C:bootwin7.
> > Does this sound right?
>
> Ignoring the SRP issues which have already been discussed, unless I'm confused, what
> is still being overlooked is that the logical drives referred to as D: and E: are
> inside an extended partition which is a primary partition.


Correct