Full pedant:
FDISK will only let you create a single primary dos partition, up to 2gb. All others must be inside an extended partition.
HOWEVER
3rd party tools like PQ magic will allow you to make up to 4 primary dos partitions, if you want. Only one can be set 'active'. (Bootable). Dos will assign them drive letters using the following logic:
Boot volume always C.
Volumes assigned letters in numerical sequence, starting at the top of the table, and then in similar order on any subsequent drives.
Primary volumes given priority over extended partions.
Eg, like this for a this sample partition table and drive setup.
PriMaster
1) pridos 1gb --> D
2) pridos 1gb (*active*, booted from) --> C
3) pridos 1gb --> E
4) extdos (1gb logical) -->F
PriSlave
1) pridos 1gb -->G
2) pridos 1gb (*active*, not booted from) -->H
3) extdos (1gb logical) | (1gb logical) -->I, J
4) NotDedined
Re:
Microsoft shenanigans about devices with multiple partitions.
On win7, there were issues with USB devices that assert the *REMOVABLE DRIVE* capabilities bit, and having multiple partitions. Windows DOES NOT like having multiple partitions on *REMOVABLE DRIVES*. [SD Cards, Cheap USB flash media, SuperFloppies, etc], but is just peachy with them on NONREMOVABLE devices [SATA->USB bridges, etc.]
There is somewhat an exception for this, if you turn off the 'quick removal' protection flag, but only for USB devices. It still bitches mightily about SDCards.
This behavior has been around, and enforced, for quite some time, and relates to how windows enumerates the device in its subsystem.
Nonremovable drives get treated like full disks, by the disk ID subsystem, and thus can contain volumes.
Removable disks are treated as simple volumes themselves (and NOT 'as disks'), and cannot contain additional ones. Unchecking the 'safe removal' box makes windows treat it as a full disk.
SDCard treated *special*. MS has a full-on hateboner for the very idea of treating SDCard like a full disk. To circumvent this, you need to play shenanigans with a disk filter driver, so windows thinks it's just a normal removable disk.