The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.51 and 4.0
- Microsoft Windows NT Server versions and 3.51 and 4.0
SYMPTOMS
When you try to create multiple stripe sets or stripe sets with parity and
a volume set or a mirror set, you may encounter the following error.
The disk containing one of the free spaces you have chosen is not able
to accept any more partitions.
CAUSE
The partition table only has support for up to four partitions per
individual hard disk drive. When you create a Stripe Set, or a Stripe Set
with parity, by default, Windows NT regards it as a primary partition.
Thus, after the fourth primary partition is created, you have reached the
maximum number of primary partitions on that hard disk.
Please note that Windows NT Workstation does not support Stripe Sets with
Parity.
RESOLUTION
To work around this limit, you must configure each disk to have an extended
partition. There is no partition or logical drive limitation in an extended
partition so you will be able to create as many partitions or stripe sets
as desired. This can be done with Disk Administrator.
- Start Disk Administrator and highlight the disk you are going to use and
check the status in the bottom left hand corner of Disk Administrator.
If the status box shows free space, go to the Partition menu and click
Create Extended.
- A dialog box asking what size to make the extended partition appears,
the size you choose should be large enough to hold all the stripe sets
(or Fault Tolerant sets) that you plan to create on this hard disk.
Which will usually be the entire disk.
- After you have entered the size of the extended partition click OK.
NOTE: See how the slanted bars now slant from top right to bottom left.
- Select the partition again, and look in the status box in the bottom
left-hand corner to confirm you now have a empty extended partition.
- Confirm this and go back to the Partition menu and click Commit
Changes Now.
- Two dialog boxes now appear, one asking you to confirm these changes and
another suggesting that you run the Emergency Repair Disk utility
(Rdisk). Click OK to confirm the changes now and be sure to run the
Rdisk utility (and chose update repair info) when you have completely
set up your stripe set.
- Complete this procedure for all the drives you plan to create multiple
stripe sets on.
NOTE: If you already have existing stripe sets installed on the hard disk
drive but still have free unused space on the hard disk drive, this
procedure will still work. But if you have a hard disk drive with 3 primary
partitions and one extended partition, and the disk still has free space,
you will not be able to create any more partitions on the hard disk drive.
You will need to back up your data from partitions contained on the
extended partition, delete the drives and extended partition, and re-create
the extended partition to include the additional contiguous free space.
Keywords : ntfault ntsetup NTSrvWkst kbsetup
Version : WinNT:3.5,3.51,4.0
Platform : winnt