Windows NT Removable Media Requirements and Limitations

ID: Q101626

The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Windows NT operating system, 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
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

Keywords : kbhw nthw ntfilesys
Version : 3.1 3.5 3.51 4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type :


Last Reviewed: January 13, 1999
© 2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use.