DOCUMENT:Q101626  25-AUG-1993  [W_NT]
TITLE   :INF: Windows NT Removable Media Requirements and Limitations
PRODUCT :Windows NT
PROD/VER:3.10
OPER/SYS:WINDOWS
KEYWORDS:

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The information in this article applies to:

 - Microsoft Windows NT operating system, version 3.1
 - Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server, version 3.1
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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) filesystem on removable media.

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

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

 - You cannot install the system on a removable 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 reference words: 3.10 iomega bernoulli
KBCategory:
KBSubcategory: FILSYS HRDWR

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Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1993.