To install block devices, physical device drivers first install the primary DOS partitions on all physical drives, if any exist. This ensures that an existing drive letter, D:, on the 81h drive remains the same. After these devices are installed on the 80h drive, the drivers look for the existence of the extended DOS partition. If one exists, then the physical device drivers look at the first sector of the extended DOS partition for the first extended boot record. If there is a valid System ID (01h, 04h, 06h, or 07h) in any of the four partition entries, the device is installed and assigned the next available drive letter. This occurs before any CONFIG.SYS device drivers are loaded, so the FDISK will correctly display the drive letter when space is allocated for the drive.

The first extended boot record (in the extended DOS partition) is a special case, because it is possible there will not be a device to be installed defined in the partition table. The first device might have been created and then deleted at some time. However, the first extended boot record is needed to point to the next one, if one exists. Any other extended boot record will always have a device to be installed.

Once a device has been installed (or the special cases above occur), the physical device driver searches the other partition entries for a System ID byte of 05h, indicating that another device (extended volume) exists. If a 05h is not found, there are no more logical block devices (extended volumes) in the extended DOS partition.

If a 05h System ID is found, the start location in that partition entry is read in order to find the location of the next extended boot record. When located, it is read in, and then the process is repeated in order to install additional devices.

Once all the valid devices for a physical drive have been installed, the next physical drive is examined and the entire process is repeated.

A device driver does not assume any order dependency when searching for a particular System ID byte in an extended boot record. All four possible entries in an extended boot record partition table are searched, before a driver decides that a particular System ID byte does not exist.

The extended DOS partition can only be created if a primary DOS or IFS partition already exists on a bootable drive. A primary DOS partition has a System ID of 01h, 04h, or 06h. A primary IFS partition has a System ID of 07h. If the drive is not bootable, an extended DOS partition can be created without having a primary DOS partition. The extended DOS partition starts and ends on a cylinder boundary.