Microsoft KB Archive/143148

= Minimum Disk Partition Size Allowed Varies Among Drives =

Article ID: 143148

Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.5
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.51
 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.5
 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51

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This article was previously published under Q143148



SUMMARY
When you create a primary, extended or logical drive partitions using Windows NT Disk Administrator, the following partition information appears:

  Minimum size for the partition is     X MB

Maximum size for the partition is    Y MB   (Y=size of free space)

Create partition size                Z MB

where X is the minimum size for the partition. Y is the size of available free space and Z is the partition size you want to create.



MORE INFORMATION
The minimum size for the partition varies among different hard disks and hard disk controllers. Every partition must end on a cylinder boundary and the minimum number of cylinders is one. Depending on the capacity of the drive, geometry of the drive and the way the controller translates the drive determines the minimum size for the partition.

The following is an example that calculates the minimum partition size:

 DRIVE    translated geometry   bytes/sector          Equals Capacity  #heads  X  #sectors      X 512        Minimum Partition size --           ---

1GB        63     X    32          X 512     =  1,032,192 bytes  (1 MB) 2GB        63     X    64          X 512     =  2,064,384 bytes  (2 MB) 4GB       255     X    64          X 512     =  8,355,840 bytes  (8 MB)

Additional query words: prodnt

Keywords: KB143148

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