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- DOCUMENT:Q103102 20-AUG-1993 [W_NT]
- TITLE :Repartitioning Corrupts Partition Table
- PRODUCT :Windows NT
- PROD/VER:3.10
- OPER/SYS:WINDOWS
- KEYWORDS:
-
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
- The information in this article applies to:
-
- - Microsoft Windows NT operating system, version 3.1
- - Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server, version 3.1
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- Disk Administrator (and the FDisk engine it shares with Setup) lays
- down partition table information on a disk based on that disk's
- Cylinder-Head-Sector geometry. For SCSI disks, this geometry is
- invented by the driver, rather than being an inherent property of the
- disk. Windows NT follows a relatively standard method of using a
- geometry that produces 1-Megabyte tracks. However, other systems (or
- SCSI disks run with BIOS) can use different geometries.
-
- When a disk with multiple partitions is taken from one system to
- another system which uses a different geometry, repartitioning it with
- Disk Administrator can cause the partition table to become corrupt.
- This is because Disk Administrator aligns all partitions on track
- boundaries based on the current disk geometry. If the partition table
- entry for an existing partition is rewritten with a new starting
- offset, the data on that partition becomes inaccessible.
-
- This can be corrected by editing the partition table (with an MS-DOS
- boot floppy and Norton Utilities for example) to set the partition
- starting sector and length back to its original value. You can use the
- BIOS Parameter Block (BPB) in sector zero of the physical volume to
- determine the geometry, or you can fish around for sector zero of the
- partition, which also contains a BIOS Parameter Block, to find the
- starting sector offset.
-
- Additional reference words: 3.10
- KBCategory:
- KBSubCategory: NTAP
-
- =============================================================================
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-
- Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1993.