I have a compaq laptop with an ide hard drive in it. I try a lot of different OS's and I'm currently switch between Ubuntu, Windows7, and JoliOS(another linux distro). However in Win7 the partition manager reads FIVE primary partitions which I thought wasn't possible. Is this something I should be worried about?
To clarify, I have the linux partitions enclosed in a single logical partition. Screenshot of the same drive from GParted. (booting from the ubuntu partition, not liveCD if that matters)
Best Answer
I'm not sure if the comment on your question was a comment from Random or your deleted post but from your second screen-cap you do in fact have an extended partition at the start of your drive that is housing the three Linux partitions, for a total of 3 actual primary partitions.
This is corroborated by the following, though it appears that Linux is enumerating the primary partitions first even though they are located towards the end of the disk.
Specifically note that the extended partition is at the start of the disk and encloses the Linux partitions (the second and third numbers in the columns are block start and stop numbers).
Windows does not appear to handle this case very well and while it is correctly reporting the positions of the partitions it is not actually showing the extended partition.
Your partition scheme is technically legal and I doubt it will cause any problems, but it is a bit unusual to say the least.