windows 7 - One primary partition left: Root or home?

08
2014-07

aldorado

I have Windows running on two partitions of my computer. I am now planning to install crunchbang on the left space. Hence I have one primary and two logical partitions left if I want to have root, home and swap. I would think I'd place the extended partition at the end. But which partition is more important to be primary? Root or home? My guess would be:

/ --> primary

/home --> logical

swap --> logical

Or completely different?

Thanks a lot!

Answers

asamarin

There should be no difference, AFAIK. If it helps you, my current HDD layout looks very similar to yours, and in my case I indeed have / as the primary partition and /home and swap as logical partitions within the extended partition. It looks like this:

$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 232.9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x52305230

Device    Boot     Start       End    Blocks  Id System
/dev/sda1         208896  82223103  41007104   7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 *     82223104 205697023  61736960  83 Linux
/dev/sda3      205697024 488396799 141349888   5 Extended
/dev/sda5      205699072 480008191 137154560  83 Linux
/dev/sda6      480010240 488396799   4193280  82 Linux swap / Solaris

$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 232.9G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0  39.1G  0 part /mnt/win
├─sda2   8:2    0  58.9G  0 part /
├─sda3   8:3    0     1K  0 part
├─sda5   8:5    0 130.8G  0 part /home
└─sda6   8:6    0     4G  0 part [SWAP]

NOTE: You may have noticed that I'm only using three primary partitions (Win, root and extended) instead of four; that's because there's another very small (100 MiB) hidden primary partition at the beginning of the disk that doesn't show there. Just testing stuff, I'll get rid of it next time I format the box, but it doesn't invalidate my point.

Rod Smith

You seem to misunderstand primary, extended, and logical partitions. An MBR disk supports up to four primary partitions. As that's limiting, one of these partitions may be configured as an extended partition, which can hold an arbitrarily large number of logical partitions. Thus, your belief that you have "...two logical partitions left..." is in error; if you've got unused space within your extended partition, you can create as many logical partitions as will fit in your unused space.

Before you start planning this out, though, be aware that MBR is on the way out. If your computer came with OS X or Windows 8 pre-installed, and perhaps if it came with Windows 7 from the last year or so of its reign, your computer probably boots with an EFI instead of a BIOS and uses GPT rather than MBR partitions. GPT doesn't distinguish between primary, extended, and logical partitions, and GPT supports up to 128 partitions by default. Thus, if you're using a recent computer, you might not need to worry about this ancient distinction. In fact, it's possible to use GPT on even older computers, but the advantages of doing so are slim.

As to a /home partition, that's a matter of opinion. Mine is that /home partitions are advisable on any but the smallest installations, because they help isolate user data from system data. This can simplify certain types of upgrades and system backups

You can be able to resize your ntfs primary partition through Ubuntu live disk or gparted live disk.

Boot from gparted live disk or Ubuntu live disk.If you boot from Ubuntu live disk, then click on Try Ubuntu option on startup.By default, gparted utility would be installed on Ubuntu live disk.Open gparted partition Editor from dash(An alternative to Windows Start Button on Ubuntu).
Let us assume, your partitions would be look like this.

Linux disk naming system was completely different from Windows disk naming system.In the above screenshot /dev/sda refers to your first disk.And /dev/sda1,/dev/sda2,.., refers to the partitions present in your first disk.
Assume /dev/sda2 is your ntfs primary partition(Where you're going to install Windows ).IMO you are willing to add 2.73 unallocated space to your /dev/sda2 ntfs partition.I'm going to explain how to add that unallocated space to your /dev/sda2 primary partition with the above screenshot as an example.
To resize your ntfs primary partition, you have to get out of the unallocated space from the extended partition and move that unallocated space just below to your ntfs primary partition.The unallocated space is not present below the extended partition, it's inside the extended partition(take a look at the screenshot clearly).
Right-click on the /dev/sda5 and select Resize/Move option.Now, move the /dev/sda5 partition by click and move the dragger to the extreme right, so that the unallocated space will comes above to the /dev/sda5 partition.

Now your partitions will looks like this,
Now, right-click on that /dev/sda3 extended partition and select Resize/Move option.Shrink it's space, so that the unallocated space present inside the extended partition will comes out of that(just above to the /dev/sda3 extended partition).
Oh, it comes out of the extended partition.Now you can be able to increase the size of your ntfs primary partition(/dev/sda2)

Note: Make sure that all the partitions are unmounted, before doing the above operations.It takes some time according to the size of your extended partition while moving between the partitions, so be patient.Finally don't forget to take backup of all your important datas.

harrymc

You need to move the extended partition to the end of the disk so that the the empty space is just after the primary partition.

When you demand the partition manager to extend the primary, it can't automatically move the extended partition. You need to do this manually using your favorite partition manager. This is a very slow operation, so wait patiently.

In addition to the other partition managers that you've tried, you might also look at Paragon Drive Backup 9.0 Free Edition. I haven't actually had the occasion to use it, but its interface looks nice.

Bobby

Disclaimer: Like with all partition-altering methods, you should have a backup. I've worked with gparted for over 5 years now and never had a problem. But the possibility to lose everything is omnipresent when altering partitions.

With the gparted Live-CD you should be able to move the second NTFS partition to the end of the harddisk. Let me draw you some art:

: --> First Partition
| --> Second Partition
= --> Free Space

::::::||||||||||||||||||======== --> Now move the last partition to the end
::::::========|||||||||||||||||| --> Now you can allocate the additional space/resize
::::::::::::::||||||||||||||||||

verstapp

But as the original extended partition is quite likely 'the rest of the space on the disk', you will quite likely have to shrinnk that partition before expanding the primary one.

Home

windows 7 - One primary partition left: Root or home?

You can be able to resize your ntfs primary partition through Ubuntu live disk or gparted live disk.