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McSummation
Mmmm, Zeebas Are Tastee.
Premium Member
join:2003-08-13
Fort Worth, TX

McSummation to OutOfMem

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to OutOfMem

Re: [XPPro] Cannot access 2nd partition on USB drive

Is the second partition a Primary or a Logical? I should be a Logical.

OutOfMem
openSUSE 11.4
Premium Member
join:2001-05-11

OutOfMem

Premium Member

said by McSummation:

Is the second partition a Primary or a Logical? I should be a Logical.
Nice call. I completely overlooked that. I created both partitions as primary ones. I figured that up to 4 primary partitions (maximum on a msdos partition table scheme) would be fine on a USB stick. I'll redo my setup as a primary partition and a logical partition (within an extended partition).

I will update, hopefully with good news.

McSummation
Mmmm, Zeebas Are Tastee.
Premium Member
join:2003-08-13
Fort Worth, TX

McSummation

Premium Member

Well, linux isn't all that fussy. However, winders has the funny idea that there should only be one primary active on a "drive" at a time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

OutOfMem
openSUSE 11.4
Premium Member
join:2001-05-11

OutOfMem

Premium Member

Click for full size
Error message in Disk Management
I reconfigured my stick so that the 2nd partition is a logical within an extended. Actually, it's technically like this:

Partition 1, Primary, FAT32, 256 MB
Partition 2, Extended
Partition 3, Unused
Partition 4, Unused
Partition 5, Logical, FAT32, 700 MB (within Extended Partition 2)

However, the same issue still arises in Windows XP. Only the 1st partition is displayed under My Computer, and when I check in Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management, I can see the 2nd partition is once again unassigned. When I try to assign to it a drive letter, I get the same error message. (See the above attachment.) Even after rebooting the computer with the stick still plugged in, the same problem occurs.

I do not have access to a Windows Vista system at the moment, so I am not sure if this is only a problem with XP, or if it will give me the same issue with Vista.

What confuses me is that on an internal SATA or PATA drive, no matter what combination of primary, extended, and logical partitions I use, Windows XP is able to read them and access them just fine. Why would this be any different than partitioning an external USB hard drive or a flash drive?