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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-23T08:30:37+00:00

I am using Python to open the physical disk in the computer to read

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I am using Python to open the physical disk in the computer to read the first sector.

disk = r"\\.\PhysicalDrive0"
with open(disk, 'r') as f:
        f.seek(0)
        partdata = f.read(512)
len(partdata)

In windows XP len(partdata) will return 512 and have the correct content. In windows 7 len(partdata) returns 230 and the data is correct until it breaks off.

Also, trying to seek farther into the disk doesn’t work and it only returns the first 230 bytes.

Python versions 2.7.1 and 2.7.2 32bit and 64bit

On Windows 7, one 32bit machine one 64bit.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Try opening in binary mode

    with open(disk, 'rb') as f:
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