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On Windows 10
I have a 16 GB (14.3 GiB) USB flash storage which I have partitioned into two NTFS partitions, a 2 GB and a 12 GB partition.
And I have done this with Windows 10's Disk Management as you can see:
On Windows 8.1 or 7
I have tested the USB device on a Win 8.1 PC and Win 7 laptop and they both fail to read or mount the second partition (the 12 GB partition). They both only show and mount the first partition.
If I right click and try to check properties or try to change drive letter for the second partition, I get this error in disk management:
I tried diskpart
but I realized that it's not able to change drive letters for partitions but only for volumes which doesn't help in this situation:
I tried connecting the device to an Ubuntu 18.04.2 and an old windows 7 Ultimate build on VMWare (both are VMs) and both failed to recognize the device.
Just to make sure the device works on another Windows 10 setup, I tested it, and it mounted both partitions successfully as expected.
What is the problem? Is my partitioning wrong? (Should I not have made them both NTFS?) How can I successfully mount the second partition?
What can I do to prevent such things to happen in the future? Because I expect things to work right out and I needed my files on the devices where I had no access to my own Windows 10 laptop, so what can I do to recover the files in dire situation?
Older versions can't recognize multiple partitions in an external device. Nothing to do about that. – None – 2019-08-13T19:30:44.400
You're right.. I just checked on Windows 8.1 and I was not able to delete any of the partitions, so I cleaned the devices with
diskpart
and I tried allocating the space, I was able to create only one partition. Since it also did not work on Ubuntu.. I wonder if multiple partition works on any OS other than Win 10.. Also is this limitation on USB sticks? Or all external devices? For example a 1TB external HDD? – Shayan – 2019-08-13T19:39:51.810I also found this question which is similar to mine kind of https://superuser.com/questions/271245/multiple-partitions-for-an-external-usb-hard-drive-used-by-linux-and-windows
– Shayan – 2019-08-13T19:45:17.340Ubuntu can read multiple partitions anywhere. – None – 2019-08-13T21:21:43.580