Sudden disk0s3 volume

[Trainwreck707]

I have a 2008 Mac Pro with separate internal HD's for Mac & Windows. While formatting a third internal I noticed that my main HD now has a partition titled "disk0s3." It is 128 MB and says the type is Microsoft Reserved. I did not use BootCamp to install Windows and do not have a Windows partition on my main HD so I am wondering what this is and where it came from.

Does anyone else that boots windows from a separate HD have this partition? Could it have come from one of the system updates? What would happen if I deleted it? It is tiny so I am not too concerned—just wondering why it's there.

 

[chscag]

Don't delete it. I'm thinking it's a pointer that may be required so you can boot from your Windows only hard drive. All versions of Windows like to be on the master HD in the first primary bootable partition. There's various ways of fooling it to boot from a slave HD or even from a second or third primary partition. That small 128 MB partition might be needed for doing that.

Regards.

 

[Neil321]

Sounds like your swap partition (EFI) although their normally 200mb,anyways i'd leave it alone

 

[Trainwreck707]

Thanks—I won't delete it. It's just strange that I didn't notice it before. I've been dual booting for a few months and don't recall it being there.

 

[Dragonforce]

I have the disk0s3 128 MB "Microsoft Reserved" partition on my start volume as well... I don't remember who or what created it... I'm booting Windows from the HDD in bay 2 (Mac Pro)

Does anyone know what exactly it is ?