Editing Disk partitioning (section)

=== DOS, Windows, and OS/2 ===
With [[DOS]], [[Microsoft Windows]], and [[OS/2]], a common practice is to use one primary partition for the active [[file system]] that will contain the operating system, the page/swap file, all utilities, applications, and user data. On most Windows consumer computers, the [[drive letter assignment|drive letter]] C: is routinely assigned to this primary partition. Other partitions may exist on the HDD that may or may not be visible as drives, such as recovery partitions or partitions with diagnostic tools or data. (Windows drive letters do not correspond to partitions in a one-to-one fashion, so there may be more or fewer drive letters than partitions.)

Microsoft [[Windows 2000]], [[Windows XP|XP]], [[Windows Vista|Vista]], and [[Windows 7]] include a '[[Logical Disk Manager|Disk Management]]' program which allows for the creation, deletion and resizing of FAT and NTFS partitions. The Windows Disk Manager in Windows Vista and Windows 7 utilizes a [[1 MB partition alignment]] scheme which is fundamentally [[Logical Disk Manager#Compatibility problems|incompatible]] with Windows 2000, XP, OS/2, DOS as well as many other operating systems.