"You can't drop a column thats partitioned" -- is there a test that demonstrates this? What does its error message say? Do I get the same error if I drop and then add the column before I see the PARTITION TABLE statement? OR is this how I get around the inability to "alter column not null". It's so strange that "add column ... not null " is apparently allowed but not "alter column... not null" even on an existing not null column.