When formatting XP there is always this 8mb of Unpartioned Space. Can anyone tell me what this is?

Good question. I don't know either though.

Edit: Short answer. Google is your friend.

I swear that only happend with my raptors, even though I dont know what a dynamic volume is, thanks for the linkage!

Yeh I got it with by baracuda as well. Nice to know the answer at last

That tip from that link dosnt make any scence to me from what i know that lil 8MB space sould be the small area on the hard drive with the masterboot record information.The whole part about dynamic discs i dunno about that cause if its unpartitioned and hidden from windows i dont think it can be used to make dynamic discs. but im about 100% shure that it has the MBR on it.

swap space mabie ? i know in linux u have to leave some space for swap.. mabie thats what it is

Nope, windows swap is on the same partiton (EDIT: by default), besides, it would have to be a lot bigger for swap. reccommened swap is 1.5 times your ram size.

My guess would be MBR.

Quote: Originally Posted by TiZakit Nope, windows swap is on the same partiton (EDIT: by default), besides, it would have to be a lot bigger for swap. reccommened swap is 1.5 times your ram size. My guess would be MBR.

the swap file dosnt have to be on the same partition its actually recomended by alot of people to have a dedicated 2-3 gig partition just for the swap file to improve preformance but the thing i cant remember is if the MBR is created at the factory with the low level format which puts all of the sectors on the disks or if its actually created after a partition for a os is created .. but im about 99.999% shure thats what it is is the mbr guess i will have to pull up my old mcse book. lol.

Basically and without going too deep... the 8MBs is there in case you want to convert to or from NTFS/FAT32

If you have access to it, use Partition Magic to create a temp 300 meg partition at the end of the drive (next to the unused 8 megs). Once you have that partition created (usually requires a reboot on your primary drive, no reboot if it's a secondary drive) you can delete the partition creating blank space that includes that 8 megs . . . Just use that entire space to create a new partition and then merge the partition back into your primary partition.

Lots of work to grab back 8 megs of unused space, but it just annoys me not to have access to all the space I should. Also, it may seem redundant to do all those steps, but Partition Magic refuses to make a new partition out of only 8 megs of space. You simply have to absorb it back the hard way.

Hope this helps if you REALLY want to have access to it.

D

it's a space reserved for MBR

Actually, Rades, HoJo's link above explains it . . . it's for conversion purposes . . . but, if you are like me and are sticking with NTFS, you can use the space up and it won't hurt anything . . . if it were for MBR, my drives would have crashed as soon as I used my technique above.

sorry...wasn't reading carefully...I really thought that my answer is correct..I read it somewhere...