RW> I would prefer drive labels, not letters.
 RW> When the op-system boots it reads 1 sector indicating if its bootable
 RW> or not  and where the next partition starts.  Where the 2nd partition
 RW> starts, same  thing, is it bootable & where is the next partition, or
 RW> indicate its the last. Each partition would also have the label in
 RW> it.  Once the op-system boots, use  UNC type paths based on the
 RW> machine name.
 RW>
 RW> I would also think this would break a few utilities, maybe even have
 RW> to be the  start of a new op-system.

Replacing the partition table with a new data structure like this would be the 
start of a whole new PC architecture.  It wouldn't be compatible with any
other PC operating system.

Where does the operating system obtain "the machine name" from ?  

And what does the operating system do in the case that two volumes have been
given the same label by the user ?

It is fortunate that the existing partition table scheme is enough like a
linked list to make this sort of redesign unnecessary.  I wasn't really asking 
Mike how one would re-design the partition table, anyway.  Although it is
ugly, and certainly not how it should have been designed if one were designing 
a partition table data structure from scratch, as long as one is willing to
drop the "align everything to a track boundary" rule there isn't actually
*that* much wrong with it as it stands.

 ¯ JdeBP ®

--- FleetStreet 1.22 NR
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