So I have 3 ext usb 3 drives I use for storage, back up etc. Also have my Sample drive (which is evo 970 nvme m.2) and it also is primary?
 
Is this a win 10 thing?
I always assumed my boot disk primary and the rest logical.
 
Is this a problem or could it present a problem down the road?
 
I do have Aomei Partition app which can convert them to logical (well except boot C of course)
 
Also, the samsung Sample disk is Disk 0. and C drive is disk 1. Once again confusing for this old timer......
thanks

Where are you seeing that the drive is "primary?" The term primary relative to a drive is typically that it is formatted as a primary partition. Any drive must have a single partition formatted as a primary partition, and can additionally have up to four total primary partitions and multiple extended partitions. So if you are seeing that a drive is a primary partition in disk management, it just refers to how it is formatted. The drive that you boot from will typically have a partition that says it is a boot partition, which is quite different. It is certainly possible to attach more than one drive to a system that has a bootable partition, but unless you are using a multiboot loader, the results can be interesting.

THese are separate drives, not a partitioned drive. I am aware of the primary limitation #. . I realize the boot drive needs to be primary. Just that I have had 3+ drives in every pc I have built in years past. Never were they primary except for boot drive. 
Just not understanding why these are set as primary....all of a sudden. Is this a win 10 thing?
I can just change them using minitool or Aomei but was trying to find out how and why this happen.
 
 

There is no such thing as a primary drive, at least you will never see that name in Windows disk management or any partitioning software. If you see primary in that context it refers to a primary partition.
 
Any drive that windows reads or writes is a partitioned drive. Without a partition it cannot be formatted. If you have a new machine and a new install of Win 10, you most probably have a GPT/EFI setup booting from a UEFI. GPT permits 128 primary partitions per drive, so the old extended/logical addressing of a primary partition under MBR is not really necessary for most of us. A primary partition is the basic partition needed to make your drive data accessible. Under GPT, your boot drive will have an EFI system partition, which is the thing that makes a drive bootable. Primary is just referring to the partition type, and unless the drive has the EFI Sys it is not going to do anything except hold data, it is not a boot drive and you should just leave it alone. My system also a clean install has a fixed drive with an EFI System drive (which makes it accessible to boot from the UEFI firmware) and a partition that shows up in disk management as boot (which means it contains the bootable Widows system files) and primary. My removable drives, all purchased pre-formatted, show a tiny reserved partition (put there by the manufacturer for their own use) and a large storage space formatted as a primary partition (which means it is not a logical address on another primary partition i. e. a standalone partition as opposed to an extended partition). My internal data drive shows up as a single large primary partition. Under the old MBR system, those drives would have looked the same except that the EFI system partition would be missing, and instead the primary partition would have been status "active" so that the BIOS firmware could access it. In that case only the primary partition marked active would be able to boot. I am still not clear what you think your old drives had instead of primary partitions. All of the data drives I have ever had in any of my numerous Windows computers were formatted as one or more primary partitions unless I deliberately created an extended partition. 

slartabartfast
Where are you seeing that the drive is "primary?"

I am wondering this as well, since Macrium Reflect sees all my drives/partitions as "primary." Additionally, my drive #s are in not "logical" (Disk1 = HDD = E:, Disk2 = SSD = D:, Disk3 = NMVe M.2 = C:)... exact reverse order of expectations. To change these is a PITA, and the only place they need to be read is when doing images to C (where I first even noticed it). I have had this machine 8 months now and blown it off in all other respects.

I do NOT have GPT, all my drives are MBR..................... Achi is not active, keeps getting turned off? and all my personalized crap is gone after every reboot. I tried the tricks on the web. Doesn't help. Just small stuff like mouse trails for old eyes. Edge not running in background, etc, etc, etc. I like to turn useless crap off-always have. 
Win 10 evidently picked up the evo 970 nvme m.2 and made it disk 0?  Whatever. 
 
But most important is the MBR status of all my drives. 
Found MS IT page with instructions to use MBR2GPT.EXE located in sys32 folder to convert from mbr to GPT, without losing or messing with any info. Has a video with it also. I'll give that a shot! 
Then I should be able to enable UEFI in the bios.
 

stratman70
I do NOT have GPT, all my drives are MBR..................... Achi is not active, keeps getting turned off? and all my personalized crap is gone after every reboot. I tried the tricks on the web. Doesn't help. Just small stuff like mouse trails for old eyes. Edge not running in background, etc, etc, etc. I like to turn useless crap off-always have. 
Win 10 evidently picked up the evo 970 nvme m.2 and made it disk 0?  Whatever. 
 
But most important is the MBR status of all my drives. 
Found MS IT page with instructions to use MBR2GPT.EXE located in sys32 folder to convert from mbr to GPT, without losing or messing with any info. Has a video with it also. I'll give that a shot! 
Then I should be able to enable UEFI in the bios.
 

I'd seriously advise against changing to UEFI, or swapping from MBR to GTP on a working system.
 
Windows installs different drivers for UEFI, so swapping it may make your system unbootable.
 
You may be lucky and be able to swap it back, but I've seen this go wrong on at least 3 occasions, which then required a complete re-install of Windows.

Thanks to all-Also sorry if I seem a bit hostile. It is because I feel so inadequate with win 10 and 2018 and new er terms and tech. Just frustrating because I was very proficient when I was in the biz but of course that was 15 years ago. Just frustrating .
 
I do appreciate each and every reply.
@msmcleod...Thanks for pointing out the danger here. In all honesty, I almost hope it does not work and I have to reinstall. Because I believe I have made small missteps thinking I know it all and would rather start all over.
 
Am I correct in assuming that if I do this and it fails the re -install should not cause any plugs to be re authorized since I am not changing any HW at all?
 
Well here I go-As stated I will follow the youtube video and docs from the MS it support site. 
Here goes my friends.............................

There are ways to convert.  I've done it.  Its a bit tricky but works.  UEFI Bios is more (security/virus) secure and is used by PC manufacturers on all their new PC's.    
 
Another "lesson" in upgrading to current technology and OS.
 
How to convert MBR to GPT from the tenforums.com tutorials
https://www.tenforums.com...disk-windows-10-a.html
  

It was painless with Aomei Partition Asst, which I have owned for years. Took about 3 minutes and a reboot. It does add another partition to the C drive, but minuscule-like 102MB, which is nothing these days. 
 
ThanksFB