Can You Split A Hard Drive Into More Than 4 Primary Partitions

So, you have a shiny new hard-drive and want to install multiple operating systems on it, but just how many partitions can you create for those systems? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answers to one reader’s partitioning dilemma.

Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.

Screenshot courtesy of Luis M. Gallardo D. (Flickr).

The Question

SuperUser reader 09stephenb wants to know if it is possible to split his hard-drive into more than 4 primary partitions:

Is there a way to split 09stephenb’s 1 TB hard-drive into more than 4 primary partitions? If so, then just how far could you ‘go’ with the number of partitions?

The Answer

SuperUser contributors gronostaj and Daniel B have the answer for us. First up, gronostaj:

Followed by the answer from Daniel B:

Note that GPT is relatively new, and older OSes may be unable to handle it correctly. In some cases, your GPT can be completely destroyed if software does not support it.

A grub menu booting 100+ systems of Dos, Windows, Linux, BSD, and Solaris (forum thread) can be helpful if you want to stick to an MBR.

Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.

So long as the boot loader resides on a regular partition, there are no relevant limitations. Still, some operating systems may throw a tantrum.