I have been reading the book and reading the forums, but I cant seem to get a grip on how NT4 server should be partition correctly. On some messages, and on some NT4 servers, I can see 2 partitions normally, a 100MB boot partition, then the normal NT4 system partition, is the boot partition a must for a stable server ? and what is the purpose of it. And what is the correct procedure to create a boot and system partition ? Thanks for any help

The standard configuration of NT out of the box is to have boot and system being the same partition and it is limited to 4gig. Install must create this partition thought utilities like partition magic can also do it with some level of success. To get around the 4gig limit see this url http://www.ntfaq.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=13922 As mentioned in this article I posted in '99 there are a couple of issues with NT installs. One is to do the convert from fat to ntfs during the install fragments the Master File Table which impacts the speed of the file system. The other is the 7.8gig bios boot ntfs bug that will make systems not boot. By creating the small primary partition and then either another primary or extended partition with a logical drive letter you can get past this bug and have larger than 4gig boot partiton. Don't forget now that in MS Speak the first primary is the system and where winnt folder resides is the boot partition. There are those that make the 4gig boot/system and then use PM to extend the partition. This is bad since it also fragments the master file table impacting performance. Diskeeeper full version with boot time defrag can fix MFT fragmentation. At home or test system the small partition allows for multiple OS system boots on the same system. FYI

Thanks for your help again... I am reading and practicing, but its not as easy as 2000 :)