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8MB of unpartitioned space??

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  • #1

    8MB of unpartitioned space??

    When I install XP, it always partitions the HD leaving about 8MBof unpartitioned space. Now this space never appears in the disk management MMC so what does windows do with it?

    I am asking because in an attempt to fix an old HD, i accidentally created a partition there using an old version of fdisk.

    I forgot to press '5' to change physical disk Silly me!
    The Welsh support two teams when it comes to rugby. Wales of course, and anyone else playing England
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  • #2
    It's reserved for active disks

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    • #3
      so err... does it do anything?
      The Welsh support two teams when it comes to rugby. Wales of course, and anyone else playing England

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      • #4
        It happens in lots of other partition SW also id the HDD is bigger than 20GB
        And I have used Part to get the whole disk as a partition without any strange problems
        If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

        Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

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        • #5
          Utwig is partially correct: Some newer conrollers out there, particularly those supporting 48 Bit addressing, are not "perfect" about using all of the space in the HDD. My Onboard Promise 133 Controller refuses to use 8-16 MB of disk space regardless of the File System, depending on the Stripe size I choose, yet uses 100% of the available disk space when Mirroring. Go Figure.

          My HPT370 RAID controller has never used less than 100% of the available disk space, but since mine is an HPT370, not a 370A version it probably doesn't use 48Bit Addressing. (I honestly don't know, since I have it running RAID1 and it probably will forever more.)

          YMMV.
          Hey, Donny! We got us a German who wants to die for his country... Oblige him. - Lt. Aldo Raine

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          • #6
            and this has nothing to do with raid (at least hardware raid controllers). this is just how Windows XP and 2000 like their drives. i have not seen anything bad by not having the space.

            UtwigMU, do you mean Dynamic Disks?
            "And yet, after spending 20+ years trying to evolve the user interface into something better, what's the most powerful improvement Apple was able to make? They finally put a god damned shell back in." -jwz

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            • #7
              Active (Dynamic) Disks are a virtual RAID or JBOD array created from multiple physical disks in software by NT, 2K or XP.

              I think the issue of not using all of the disk space does relate to how Controllers, RAID or otherwise, report to the BIOS what the Actual disk size is vs. Actual logical disk space after a filesystem is created. This may also be a firmware limitation with the Harddisk itself.

              The Logical Block size on discs changes with overall disk volume. FAT32 for instance, uses 32 Bit Addressing (DOH!): the default block size is something like 4096 bytes for disc volumes up to 8.4 GB, then it doubles to 8128 bytes for drives up to 137GB. This may account for the drive's not being able to utilize all of the drive space unless partitioned.

              Since I only use Western Digital drives and have observed only a few of these instances and have no idea whether or not this is common or uncommon behavior.
              Hey, Donny! We got us a German who wants to die for his country... Oblige him. - Lt. Aldo Raine

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              • #8
                Originally posted by MultimediaMan
                Active (Dynamic) Disks are a virtual RAID or JBOD array created from multiple physical disks in software by NT, 2K or XP.
                Yes. hence my comment about hardware raid. this occurs before that level and is a completely seperate thing from your onboard raid controllers. and onboard raid controller would allocate all the disks space on a drive and report that as a hard drive.

                Originally posted by MultimediaMan
                I think the issue of not using all of the disk space does relate to how Controllers, RAID or otherwise, report to the BIOS what the Actual disk size is vs. Actual logical disk space after a filesystem is created. This may also be a firmware limitation with the Harddisk itself.
                [/B]
                What it reports is the real disk size, in the form of disk geometry. If it reported it incorrectly then the OS wouldn't know anything about it and you wouldn't see an 8mb unused partition.

                Originally posted by MultimediaMan
                The Logical Block size on discs changes with overall disk volume. FAT32 for instance, uses 32 Bit Addressing (DOH!): the default block size is something like 4096 bytes for disc volumes up to 8.4 GB, then it doubles to 8128 bytes for drives up to 137GB. This may account for the drive's not being able to utilize all of the drive space unless partitioned.
                [/B]
                when was the last time you saw 8mb sector sizes on a file system? also you are confusing partitioning and formatting. You partition the drive and then format it. All the partitioning does is tell the filesystem what areas it can work within, whereas the filesystem is whats responsible for creating blocks of data

                Originally posted by MultimediaMan
                Since I only use Western Digital drives and have observed only a few of these instances and have no idea whether or not this is common or uncommon behavior. [/B]
                its got nothing to do with specific hard drive used. nor does it have anything to do with the rest of the hardware in the system. its simply the way the software (Win2k/XP) chooses to create partitions. it chooses to leave the extra disk space there. i agree that it is probably for the active/dynamic disk stuff, so that you can convert your drive later, or to make it easier to do it.

                that being said, i know it works fine without having that partition there. i used to go out of my way to make sure that it used the whole disk space, then i stopped caring.
                "And yet, after spending 20+ years trying to evolve the user interface into something better, what's the most powerful improvement Apple was able to make? They finally put a god damned shell back in." -jwz

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                • #9
                  I know Ghost will do this all the time when I load an image... I find it odd... and you can't resize the last 8MB into the partition
                  Wikipedia and Google.... the needles to my tangent habit.
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