Sponsored by:
Fully Managed Technology Services
Fully Managed Technology Services
This is a quick reference list (some data may be misleading for your
specific case).
Note: Sometimes there's only one way you can be sure of the exact purpose of an obscure or rarely used partition type: You must locate, examine and gather info about the utility that created the partition and/or ask the
person who actually set up the disk what they're using that partition for!
(For a more detailed listing, see Andries Brouwer's 
Partition Type Indentifiers .)
NOTE: All Partition Type values listed below are in Hexadecimal.
Remember: Partition types do *not* necessarily specify a specific file system; e.g., 07h is used by both OS/2's HPFS and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8/10's NTFS (so for all NT file system versions).
Of the 256 possible hexadecimal values, types 00h, 05h, 0Fh and lastly EEh have been acknowledged as special use cases; see each of their entries below.
That leaves 252 possible partition type values. But you'll almost never see any but a handful of these in use today. This is primairly due to the popularity of the IBM/Microsoft operating systems (and their use of the FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS file systems), the many flavors of Unix (such as BSD) and all the Linux distributions, all of which mainly settled on using type 83h to designate their file systems; apart from swap partitions, which are type 82h. For example, the ext2 (Extended file system, version 2), ext3 and ext4 are all listed as partition type 83h. And no matter which of the various operating systems is running, type 82h indicates a swap partition.
Partition Types
___________________
00 : -- Should NOT be used in an actual table entry! It does
not indicate an unknown type, but rather an empty entry; in which case, all other fields
in that 16-byte entry should be zero-filled as well.
01 : -- 12-bit FAT (remember: this is on hard disks, not floppy disks, so you'll rarely see this today).
02 : -- XENIX root
03 : -- XENIX /usr (obsolete)
04 : -- 16-bit FAT, partition; of sizes less
than 32 MB.
05
: -- Extended Partition; within the first 1024 cylinders
of a disk drive (also see 0F below).
06 : -- 16-bit FAT, partition; greater than or equal to 32 MB.
07 : -- Installable
file systems: HPFS or NTFS. Also, QNX and Advanced Unix.
08 : -- AIX bootable partition,
AIX (Linux), SplitDrive, OS/2 (through Version 1.3),
Dell partition spanning multiple drives (array), Commodore DOS.
09 : -- AIX data partition,
AIX bootable (Linux), Coherent file system, QNX.
0A : -- Coherent swap partition,
OPUS or OS/2 Boot Manager.
0B : -- 32-bit FAT
0C : -- 32-bit FAT,
using INT 13 Extensions.
----
0E : -- 16-bit FAT >=
32 MB, using INT 13 Extensions.
0F
: -- Extended
Partition, using INT 13 Extensions; often means it begins past cylinder 1024. See our page:
Disk Terms and search for "CHS" or at Wikipedia (CHS) for an explanation of Cylinders, Heads and Sectors.
10 : -- OPUS
11 : -- Hidden 12-bit FAT.
12 : -- Compaq diagnostics.
----
14 : -- Hidden 16-bit FAT, partition <32 MB,
Novell DOS 7.0 (result of bug in FDISK?),
AST DOS with logical sectored FAT.
----
16 : -- Hidden 16-bit FAT, partition >= 32 MB
17 : -- Hidden IFS (HPFS, NTFS).
18 : -- AST Windows swap file
19 : -- Willowtech Photon coS
----
1B : -- Hidden 32-bit FAT
1C : -- Hidden 32-bit FAT, Ext INT 13
----
1E : -- Hidden 16-bit FAT >32 MB, Ext. INT 13 (PowerQuest specific)
----
20 : -- Willowsoft Overture File System (OFS1)
21 : -- reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant)
Oxygen FSo2
22 : -- Oxygen Extended
23 : -- reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?)
24 : -- NEC MS-DOS 3.x
----
26 : -- reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?)
.......
.......
31 : -- reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?)
----
33 : -- reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?)
34 : -- reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?)
----
36 : -- reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?)
----
38 : -- Theos
.......
.......
3C : -- PowerQuest Files Partition Format
3D : -- Hidden NetWare
----
----
40 : -- VENIX 80286
41 : -- Personal RISC Boot, PowerPC boot partition,
PTS-DOS 6.70 & BootWizard: Alternative Linux, Minix and DR-DOS.
42 : -- Secure File System,
Windows 2000/XP (NT 5): Dynamic extended partition
PTS-DOS 6.70 & BootWizard: Alternative Linux swap and DR-DOS.
43 : -- Alternative Linux native file system (EXT2fs)
PTS-DOS 6.70 & BootWizard: DR-DOS
----
45 : -- Priam, EUMEL/Elan.
46 : -- EUMEL/Elan
47 : -- EUMEL/Elan
48 : -- EUMEL/Elan
----
4A : -- ALFS/THIN lightweight filesystem for DOS
----
----
4D : -- QNX
4E : -- QNX
4F : -- QNX, Oberon boot/data partition.
50 : -- Ontrack Disk Manager, read-only partition, FAT partition (Logical sector size varies)
51 : -- Ontrack Disk Manager, read/write partition, FAT partition (Logical sector size varies)
Novell ?
52 : -- CP/M, Microport System V/386.
53 : -- Ontrack Disk Manager, write-only
54 : -- Ontrack Disk Manager 6.0 (DDO)
55 : -- EZ-Drive 3.05
56 : -- Golden Bow VFeature
.......
.......
5C : -- Priam EDISK
.......
.......
61 : -- Storage Dimensions SpeedStor
----
63 : -- GNU HURD, Mach, MtXinu BSD 4.2 on Mach, Unix Sys V/386, 386/ix.
64 : -- Novell NetWare 286, SpeedStore.
65 : -- Novell NetWare (3.11 and 4.1)
66 : -- Novell NetWare 386
67 : -- Novell NetWare
68 : -- Novell NetWare
69 : -- Novell NetWare 5+; Novell Storage Services (NSS)
.......
.......
70 : -- DiskSecure Multi-Boot
.......
.......
75 : -- IBM PC/IX
.......
.......
80 : -- Minix v1.1 - 1.4a, Old MINIX (Linux).
81 : -- Linux/Minix v1.4b+, Mitac Advanced Disk Manager.
82 : -- Linux Swap
partition, Prime or Solaris (Unix).
83 : -- Linux native
file systems (ext2/3/4, JFS, Reiser, xiafs, and others).
84 : -- OS/2 hiding type 04h partition;
( 84 : -- APM hibernation, can be used by Win98.)
----
86 : -- NT Stripe Set, Volume Set?
87 : -- NT Stripe Set, Volume Set?, HPFS FT mirrored partition.
.......
.......
93 : -- Amoeba file system, Hidden Linux EXT2 partition (PowerQuest).
94 : -- Amoeba bad block table
.......
.......
99 : -- Mylex EISA SCSI
.......
.......
9F : -- BSDI
A0 : -- Phoenix NoteBios Power Management "Save to Disk", IBM hibernation.
A1 : -- HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant)
----
A3 : -- HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant)
A4 : -- HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant)
A5 : -- FreeBSD/386
A6 : -- OpenBSD
A6 : -- HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant)
A7 : -- NextStep Partition
A9 : -- NetBSD
AA : -- Olivetti DOS with FAT12
.......
.......
B0 : -- Bootmanager BootStar by Star-Tools GmbH
B1 : -- HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant)
B3 : -- HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant)
B4 : -- HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant)
B6 : -- HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant)
B7 : -- BSDI file system or secondarily swap
B8 : -- BSDI swap partition or secondarily file system
.......
.......
BB : -- PTS BootWizard (hidden) 4.0; but now also used by
Acronis OS Selector to hide or create some partitions.
BC : -- May be an Acronis 'Backup' or 'Secure Zone' partition,
when labeled 'ACRONIS SZ' (FAT32, LBA mapped, primary).
----
BE : -- Solaris boot partition
----
C0 : -- Novell DOS/OpenDOS/DR-OpenDOS/DR-DOS secured
partition, or CTOS (reported by a client).
C1 : -- DR-DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured 12-bit FAT partition
C2 : -- Reserved for DR-DOS 7+
C3 : -- Reserved for DR-DOS 7+
C4 : -- DR-DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured 16-bit FAT partition
----
C6 : -- DR-DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured Huge partition, or:
Corrupted FAT16 volume/stripe (V/S) set (Windows NT).
C7 : -- Syrinx, Cyrnix, HPFS FT disabled mirrored partition, or:
Corrupted NTFS volume/stripe set.
C8 : -- Reserved for DR-DOS 7+
C9 : -- Reserved for DR-DOS 7+
CA : -- Reserved for DR-DOS 7+
CB : -- Reserved for DR-DOS secured FAT32
CC : -- Reserved for DR-DOS secured FAT32X (LBA)
CD : -- Reserved for DR-DOS 7+
CE : -- Reserved for DR-DOS secured FAT16X (LBA)
CF : -- Reserved for DR-DOS secured Extended partition (LBA)
D0 : -- Multiuser DOS secured (FAT12???)
D1 : -- Old Multiuser DOS secured FAT12
----
----
D4 : -- Old Multiuser DOS secured FAT16 (<= 32M)
D5 : -- Old Multiuser DOS secured extended partition
D6 : -- Old Multiuser DOS secured FAT16 (BIGDOS > 32 Mb)
----
D8 : -- CP/M 86
----
----
DB : -- CP/M, Concurrent CP/M, Concurrent DOS, or
CTOS (Convergent Technologies OS).
----
----
DE : -- Dell partition. Normally it contains a FAT16 file system of about 32 MB.
DF : -- BootIt EMBRM
----
E1 : -- SpeedStor 12-bit FAT Extended partition, DOS access (Linux).
E2 : -- DOS read-only (Florian Painke's XFDISK 1.0.4)
E3 : -- SpeedStor (Norton, Linux says DOS R/O)
E4 : -- SpeedStor 16-bit FAT Extended partition
E5 : -- Tandy DOS with logical sectored FAT
E6 : -- Storage Dimensions SpeedStor
.......
.......
EB : -- BeOS file system
----
ED : -- Reserved for Matthias Paul's Spryt*x
EE : -- Indicates a GPT
Protective MBR followed by a GPT/EFI Header. Used to define a fake partition covering the entire disk.
EF : -- EFI/UEFI System Partition (or ESP); defines a UEFI system partition.
On Windows PCs, "The ESP contains the NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and other files that are needed to boot the system, such as drivers. The Partition GUID
defines the ESP: DEFINE_GUID (PARTITION_SYSTEM_GUID, 0xC12A7328L, 0xF81F, 0x11D2, 0xBA, 0x4B, 0x00, 0xA0, 0xC9, 0x3E, 0xC9, 0x3B)"
Note: MBR disks can also have ESPs. UEFI specifies booting from either GPT or MBR. The ESP on an MBR disk is also identified by type 0xEF.
However, Windows does not support booting UEFI from MBR disks or 0xEF partitions. (Reference: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn640535(v=vs.85).aspx.)
----
F1 : -- SpeedStor Dimensions (Norton,Landis)
F2 : -- DOS 3.3+ second partition, Unisys DOS with logical sectored FAT.
F3 : -- Storage Dimensions SpeedStor
F4 : -- SpeedStor Storage Dimensions (Norton,Landis)
F5 : -- Prologue
F6 : -- Storage Dimensions SpeedStor
.......
.......
FD : -- Reserved for FreeDOS (http://www.freedos.org)
FE : -- LANstep, IBM PS/2 IML (Initial Microcode Load) partition, or...
( FE : -- Storage Dimensions SpeedStor (> 1024 cylinder?).)
FF : -- Xenix bad-block table
Created: June 6, 2007 (2007.06.06).
Updated: August 16, 2009 (2009.08.16); December 19, 2012 (2012.12.19); January 27, 2013 (2013.01.27).
Last Update: February 1, 2017 (2017.02.01).
You can write to us here:
reply form (opens in a new window).
MBR and Boot Records Index
The Starman's Realm Index Page