Partition Wizardry

[John Wildberger]

I intend to add a second HD to my system, but am a little 
concerned what this would do to my current system in terms of
drive letters (when in winXP) and how my linux assignments would
be affected.
I may add, that if possible, I would like to install OS/2 to the 
front end of the second HD and use the remainder in 3 equal space 
partitions for future linux distros. 

Currently I have the following configuration:

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1         613     4923891    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sda2   *         614        8906    66613522+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3            8907       19457    84750907+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5            8907       10464    12514603+   b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sda6           10465       10719     2048256   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7           10720       13269    20482843+  83  Linux
/dev/sda8           13270       15180    15350076   83  Linux
/dev/sda9           15181       17498    18619303+  83  Linux
/dev/sda10  *       17499       19457    15735636   83  Linux

The front end is used by the Win XP, consisting of Recovery Partition,
NTFS partition,and a FAT32 partition. The first two are primary and the
later is part of an extended partition.
The extended partition also has swap and four linux distros.
You will notice, that I have only used two primary and one extended
partition. 
I am not sure if I can use the inherent 4th partition also as an extended
partition, or is one only permitted to use one extended partition per
system?
I am also questioning the wisdom of installing the OS/2. What troubles 
could I expect doing this?

Any discussion on the pro's and con's will be appreciated.
John
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml