Microsoft KB Archive/49326

= Determining Number of Partitions Per Hard Disk =

Article ID: 49326

Article Last Modified on 11/25/2003

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft MS-DOS 3.1
 * Microsoft MS-DOS 3.2 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft MS-DOS 3.21 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft MS-DOS 3.3 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft MS-DOS 3.3a
 * Microsoft MS-DOS 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft MS-DOS 4.01 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q49326



SUMMARY
This article covers how MS-DOS decides how many partitions there are for each hard disk.



MORE INFORMATION
MS-DOS looks through all of the hard drives supported by the ROM BIOS and the resident disk device driver to find all of the drives. It understands extended partitions and how to find logical drives in them and reserves a letter for each drive defined.

In the main partition table, only two MS-DOS partitions are allowed: the primary partition and the extended partition. With MS-DOS Version 3.30, the values for the primary partition structure are 01 and 04. With MS-DOS Versions 4.00 and 4.01, the numbers are 01, 04, and 06 (greater than 32 MB). The extended partition is marked with a 05 system byte.

The first sector of an extended partition is the first sector of the first logical drive in that partition (usually Drive D). This sector contains the three jump bytes, followed by a BPB, followed by code. The code is similar to the boot code in the main boot sector, but since extended partition volumes cannot be booted, this code generally displays a message stating that an extended volume cannot be booted.

Following the code at the same offset as the master partition table is the extended logical drive table. This table has the same structure as the master partition table, but can only have two nonzero entries. The first kind of entry (not necessarily the first entry, most likely it is the fourth) is either a 01, 04, or 06 type drive, and defines the current drive.

If you only had Drives C and D, the logical drive table would have an entry for Drive D, and then contain three entries of 0's (zeros).

If more than one logical drive is defined within the extended partition, a second entry must be made in the logical drive table that points to the next entry.

If you had a Drive C with an extended partition that included Drives D and E, the first sector in Drive D would have a logical drive table that included a 01, 04, or 06 drive type for D with its starting and ending head/cylinder/sector numbers, and it would have a 05 entry for Drive E and its starting and ending head/cylinder/sector numbers. Drive E would have an entry in its logical drive table for itself, and three entries filled with 0's (zeros).

The first sectors in extended drives are analogous to boot sectors in the main partitions. The only difference is that they have drive tables and cannot be booted. They have BPBs and the ending 55AAH bytes that signify that the sector is valid.

Additional query words: 3.30 4.00 4.01 5.00

Keywords: KB49326

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