Server hard disks can contain up to four NetWare partitions. Each NetWare partition contains a data area, where the file system resides, and can contain another area, called the Hot Fix/mirror object, which is used to manage mirroring and Hot Fix redirection.

The entire NetWare partition, including both the data area and the Hot Fix/mirror object, is called the physical partition.

The data area of the partition is called the logical partition.

If Hot Fix and mirroring are not used, then the disk will not contain a Hot Fix/mirror object. In this case, the entire physical partition is the logical partition.

Figure 4
Logical and Physical Partitions on a Server Disk

The logical NetWare partition contains four redundant copies of the volume definition table (VDT). Each table contains a list of all volume segments in that NetWare partition. Four copies are maintained for fault tolerance. If a disk error occurs and one table is corrupted, the error can be detected and corrected.

The rest of the logical partition can contain one to eight NetWare volume segments. Each segment should belong to a different NetWare volume.