Definition of System Partition and Boot Partition (314470)
The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition
- Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional
This article was previously published under Q314470 For a Microsoft Windows 2000 version of this article, see 100525.
SUMMARY
The following are the commonly used names for the partitions that contain the Windows XP startup and operating system files, respectively:
System partition
Boot partition
This article defines these partitions.
MORE INFORMATIONSystem Partition
The system partition refers to the disk volume that contains the hardware-specific files that are needed to start Windows (for example, Ntldr, Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com).
NOTE: On dynamic disks, this is known as the system volume.
On Intel 186-and-higher-based computers (only the " x86" line), the system partition must be a primary partition that is marked active. On this line of Intel computers, this is always drive 0: the drive that the system BIOS searches when the operating system starts.
The system partition can, but is not required, to be the same partition as the boot partition.
Boot Partition
The boot partition refers to the disk volume that contains the Windows operating system files (by default, in the WINDOWS folder) and its support files (by default in the WINDOWS\System32 folder).
NOTE: On dynamic disks, this is known as the boot volume.
The boot partition can, but is not required, to be the same partition as the system partition.
There will be one (and only one) System partition, but there will be one Boot partition for each operating system in a multi-boot system. For additional information about disk storage in Windows XP, click the article number below
to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
314343 Basic Storage Versus Dynamic Storage in Windows XP
| Modification Type: | Minor | Last Reviewed: | 11/4/2003 |
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| Keywords: | kbenv kbhowto kbinfo kbother KB314470 |
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