If you _do_ convert from fat16 to fat32 you will not be able to run the 95a version of winDOZE. I suspect a crash if you _convert_ with 95a currently on the system. PM does some real cool stuff but that it will not do.At 06:44 AM 5/30/98 -0700, you wrote:
On Sat, 30 May 1998, Trevor D Stevenson wrote:
If this is a bit off subject for the list then I apologise, but as
newbie with a M$95 ver. b box with a 32.bit FAT single partition HD it was important. Like I said before I am sure that Partition Magic is a great piece of software but if its your first venture into a new OS why layout 60/80$ to start? Dwight Johnson wrote..."There is no Linux utility that will make the cluster size smaller on a DOS or WIN95
reclaim the space. Partition Magic is the only game in town." well that maybe true for linux but cvt.exe will do it for nothing and PM is not the only game in town.....
I had not heard of cvt.exe before and I have now read on Usenet that it is a completely unsupported MS utility leaked from a Win98 beta version that converts FAT16 to FAT32.
I have been running Linux for the past two years and so have not kept up on the migration from FAT16 to FAT32. That is great that FAT32 uses 4K clusters, because for everyone with FAT32 there is no need to reclaim any HD space as I suggested using Partition Magic. I would still recommend Partition Magic for quickly and easily repartitioning a Win95 hard drive to get it ready for a dual-boot Linux install.
To recap, 1. If your DOS/WIN95 partition is 16-bit FAT simply use FIPS (scandisk/defrag first)
You can certainly use fips, but Partition Magic does much more than fips and in a much more user friendly way with better documentation to work with. For the average newbie, who doesn't repartition his hard drive every other week, I still recommend Partition Magic.
2. If you have 16-bit FAT and are worried that you don't have sufficient space for a linux partition after using FIPS then you can convert your 16-bit FAT to 32-bit FAT non-destructively using the free M$ utility cvt.exe from <A HREF="http://www.dentalaw.com/freestuff"><A HREF="http://www.dentalaw.com/freestuff</A">http://www.dentalaw.com/freestuff</A</A>> ( this is NOT reversible ). On a "typical" single partition 1GB HD 16-bit FAT 32K clustersize this would free up about 150MB.
You can do this, but using an unsupported utility that was pirated from a beta MS release does not seem like the safest way to deal with important data on the HD. And if it crashed the HD, it would be most inconvenient.
Are you sure that cvt.exe, will work for all releases and revisions of Win95. I have release 0 (August '95), for example. Are you sure that release will even support FAT32? Does the average Linux newbie even know what release of Win95 he has?
With Partition Magic, you don't have to worry about all these things. You can just get the job done safely.
3. If your DOS/WIN95 partition is already 32-bit FAT simply use FIPS (scandisk/defrag first). In all cases it is better to turn off the win automatic virtual memory management ( swapfile ) otherwise FIPS might not find any free space as the swapfile tends to be at the end of the harddisk and defrag wont move it.
It's a good thing you mentioned this. But with Partition Magic, I didn't even have to think about it.
4. If for whatever reason you decide to backup and repartition/reformat
following undocumented switches for format and fdisk might be useful:- FDISK /FPRMT "normally" you cannot FDISK a FAT32 partition smaller
switch you can. FORMAT /z:n the default clustersize for FAT16 is 32K and for FAT32 is 4K if you were desparate to get as much space as possible for an e.g. linux partition
/z:n where n*512 = clustersize, on a large HD with millions of clusters
a potential Linux partition and the HD then the than 512MB, with this then you could FORMAT there would be a
performance degradation under WIN95 but as we are doing all this to get to grips with linux who cares :).
OK, we've gone from an unsupported utility to undocumented options in fdisk. It is getting less and less likely that I am going to recommend this to anyone.
Remember that all of the above only applies to ver OSR2 or later of WIN95.
The bottom line. So now the newbie has to find out what version of Win95 he is running, and if it's not OSR2 or later, he can just forget everything you have been saying and look for a different solution--and you don't give him a clue how to get there.
I did mention backing up all important stuff didn't I? :-(
Thanks, the information is quite interesting, but I'll stick to recommending Partition Magic. Partitioning a disk, unless there is nothing important on it you want to keep, is a Maalox moment for most people and $50 to make it go smoothly and to be able to easily redo it and try again with a new partitioning scheme is still one of the best $50 I spent on software. And I am no newbie, I have been a computer professional for 30 years and have partitioned many HDs the hard way.
Dwight
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