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Q101626: Windows NT Removable Media Requirements and Limitations

Article: Q101626
Product(s): Microsoft Windows NT
Version(s): 3.1 3.5 3.51 4.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kbhw kbHardware
Last Modified: 08-AUG-2001

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Windows NT Server version 3.1 
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 3.1 
- Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server, version 3.1 
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0 
- Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0 
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Windows NT supports most removable hard disks and magnetic-optical
disk drives. These disks are treated as hard disks because they must
be partitioned and they are assigned a drive letter. However, Windows
NT does not support write-once disk drives.

Windows NT supports removable media subject to the following
restrictions:

- A removable hard disk can have only one primary partition. Extended or
  logical partitions are not supported.

- Windows NT supports only the Windows NT filesystem (NTFS) and
  MS-DOS-compatible (FAT) file system on removable media.

- The user cannot assign the drive letter for the device.

- Removable disks are not supported in a fault tolerant manner.

- You can install the Windows NT system files (the files contained in the WINNT
  directory) on a removable disk. However, the NT boot files, such as NTLDR and
  NTDETECT.COM, must be on the hard disk drive (fixed disk).

- If the paging file is located on the device or if the device has the NTFS
  installed, the media is locked until the system is shutdown.

- The FAT file system locks the media while it is in use and unlocks it after
  approximately 10 seconds of inactivity. NOTE: Windows NT supports a 20.8MB
  "floptical" disk as a floppy disk, not as a hard disk. Each write to a floppy
  disk is performed on a write-through cache basis and you can remove a floppy
  disk as long as the drive light is not on.

Additional query words: prodnt iomega bernoulli WORM
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Keywords          : kbhw kbHardware 
Technology        : kbWinNTsearch kbWinNTWsearch kbWinNTW400 kbWinNTW400search kbWinNT351search kbWinNT350search kbWinNT400search kbWinNTW350 kbWinNTW350search kbWinNTW351search kbWinNTW351 kbWinNTW310 kbWinNTSsearch kbWinNTS400search kbWinNTS400 kbWinNTS351 kbWinNTS350 kbWinNTS310 kbWinNTAdvSerSearch kbWinNTAdvServ310 kbWinNTS351search kbWinNTS350search kbWinNTS310search kbWinNT310Search kbWinNTW310Search
Version           : 3.1 3.5 3.51 4.0

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