Installing NT with multiple partitions

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Adam - 29 Mar 2004 18:19 GMT

I am a tester and have several partitions with images for
each. Right now, I use BootMagic to use 3 different OS's
with one image (each is a few GB). I have tried
installing NT but it keeps giving a message about one or
more partitions have 1024 or more something or other. I
will try to get the exact error, but I've been told with
the original NT it was limited to a certain disk space
size (less than 2 GB). So I decreased my partition down
to 1.5 GB. Still no luck. I finally gave up and it
corrupted my ntoskrnl.exe and my main OS, so I had to
format and start over. Any ideas what could be going on
or what size is best for NT (I also plan on putting SP6
after I get it installed and resized)?

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Bjorn Landemoo - 29 Mar 2004 19:50 GMT

Adam

The primary partition that keeps the NT boot files needs to start within
the first 2GB of the hard disk, else NT4 will not boot. Also, see this MS
Knowledge Base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=192104

If you install NT on the first partition on the disk, this won't happen.

VM Ware or Virtual PC would be another - and perhaps better - solution.

Best regards

Bjorn

Signature

Bjorn Landemoo - mvp2@landemoo.com - http://landemoo.com/
Microsoft MVP - Windows Server Networking

>I am a tester and have several partitions with images for
>each. Right now, I use BootMagic to use 3 different OS's
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>or what size is best for NT (I also plan on putting SP6
>after I get it installed and resized)?

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Adam - 29 Mar 2004 20:18 GMT

Thanks. My NT was the first partition, but I believe I
found the issue. I had it beyond the 2 GB limit to begin
with, but also had a partition with XP that was visible.
Reading up with Partition Magic said it could cause
problems if the OS can see other partitions beyond the
1024 limit. Thanks again for the insight.

>-----Original Message-----
>Adam
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Tracy - 24 Jun 2004 19:53 GMT

Hello

I had a question, what if you do not want a partition at
all. Is NT 4.0 required to be on a partitioned harddrive.

>-----Original Message-----
>Adam
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xe77 - 30 Mar 2004 02:37 GMT

This is caused when the Windows NT bootloader is located
beyong the 7.8 GB mark (or cylindar 1024). Windows NT's
bootload doesn't support int 13h extensions. Install
Windows NT in the first partition, then install other
operating systems in the remaining partitions.

>-----Original Message-----
>I am a tester and have several partitions with images for
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>after I get it installed and resized)?
>.

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