COVERTING FAT16 TO FAT32

[Tetsuo]

Does anyone know how to change the FAT for a HDD (or O/S??) from FAT16 to FAT32???

I need to do this because of the following problem (lost space)

Any other suggestions appreciated. Thanks

_____________________________________________


Having read some of the problems/replies, I hope someone can help with a problem I am having...

I have two HDD's running on a P133 on an Intel VX-Pro Board with Win95 OSR2. One HDD is a 4.1GB Maxtor IDE drive connected as the Primary Master, partioned into 3 fairly equal parts of 1.3GB. The Other is 9.1 Quantum AtlasII SCSI harddisk connected to a adaptec 1542C card. However on this drive I get only about 8GB in size (I have been told some space is lost anyway on large drives, and this size is correct). This SCSI drive is partitioned into 4x2GB drives.

My problem is that although my SCSI partions are 2GB in size, I have found I am missing space!!! Recently I copied a couple of CD's (CorelDraw 7) onto one of my partions expecting all three CDs of about 550MB (hence 3x550MB=1.65GB) to fit onto the parition, but found that two CDs took up 1.7GB instead of 1.1GB.

I found that when selecting the two copied CD directories in Win95, and right clicking 'Properties' the combined folder size is reported as 1.1GB, but when clicking on the partition drive letter and right clicking 'Properties' there is 1.7GB of reported data used instead of 1.1GB.

There is only one hidden/system file of a mere 32K, no other files etc on the drive (even the recycle bin has been set to use no space).

I found the same problem on all my drives/partitions i.e. one size is used but another grossly larger reported to be used.

This is especially highlighted in DOS when doing 'dir *.* /s' reports total file use as 1.1GB but doing 'chkdsk' on the same drive reports use as 1.7GB (but the reported free space is always the same as 0.3GB).

There are about 500 subdirectories but even these should not account for a 600MB approx. disk space loss!

Is this anything to do with only partial clusters being used (scandisk, and defrag show very little / NO partially used clusters).

Sorry to ramble like this, but this is the first time I've run out of space on a drive and would really like to know where the space is.

Would changing to FAT32 resolve this? How is this done?

Thanks.

[socalgal]

Tetsuo - Please see my post here http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum9/HTML/000223.html

BTW - I would offer help if I could, but am running Win98 and haven't been on Win95 OSR2 in awhile. I don't think there's a Drive Converter in Accessories/Sytem Tools like in Win98...


[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 10-21-1999).]

[Pantion]

First of all back up your data. You will need a copy of Win95 OSR2.x and create a boot disk from a computer that has Win95 OSR 2.x. In the boot disk include: fdisk, format, sys and all the usual stuff: himem.sys , command.com (or it would not boot /forum/smile.gif ). Restar with your boot disk (remeber it must be a a bootdisk with all the utilities I mentioned from Win95 OSR2.x or this won't work). Begin by using fdisk and deleting and creating the partitions the way you want it. After you are finished quit fdisk and restart. Now you'll have to format the partitions and install Win95 OSR 2.x

I know its long and it could be anoying, but unless you install Win98 and a non-destructive repartitioning software like Partition Magic to combine partitions (of course you need to backup data) this is the only I know of doing it right and sure.

If you don't want to do all the stuff I just wrote no prob. wait for some one else to come up with a better idea. /forum/smile.gif

[Tetsuo]

Having played with my PC over the weekend (before reading the previous message), I found by trial and error the following things...

1.
In order for fdisk to create a FAT32, the disk or partition must be greater than 512MB (i.e. 512 x 1,024,000) otherwise a FAT16 will be done.

2.
For some reason (perhaps its just me) but copying all your "windows" & "program files" files and system files to another harddrive and back again does not work!

Use the program/accessories/disk tools/backup application (or one of your own) to backup and restore your files.

3.
The capacity of your dirve will be reduced by a couple of MB (I lost 4MB on a 4.5GB IDE drive, and about 20MB on a 9.1GB SCSI) to cater for the greater number of 'total alloaction units'.

You'll find that in FAT32 eash alloaction unit will be 4,096 bytes instead of the 8K/32K it was in FAT16 (depending on your drive size).

This means that any file less then 4K, or a directory on your drive (which are 0K supposedly) will tak a minimum space of 4K. Of course you can zip your files which will space space not only via the compression but also in that being a contious file, it'll utilise on all those partially used allocation utnits (a.k.a. clusters).

4.
Although I lost 4MB and 20MB on my total HDD size, I gained about 60MB and 600MB in freespace on each drive respectively.

Worth it? Definetly.


Thanks to everyone for thier help!