Disk partitioning question

[computerguy]

I have an old but very useable Win2k system (933MHz P3, Intel 815E MB, 512MB
RAM) and recently had to change my C: drive. I bought a Seagate 120MB ATA
drive and, using the Seagate tools formatted and partitioned it to 110GB and
10GB logical partitions (FAT32). Everything went fine. I happened to call
Seagate tech support about something else and mentioned my configuration.
Both the support people to whom I spoke said that this was impossible! The
said that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get more than one FAT32 partition larger than
32GB, i.e. I can get either one 120GB partition or ~four 32GB partitions but
not what I have nor two 60GB partitions. However, I have this and it is
working so what is going on?

Curious......
-GB

 

[John John]

Windows 2000 cannot format FAT32 volumes over 32 GB but it can mount
larger FAT32 volumes created by other operating systems. Theoretically
FAT32 volumes can be about 8 TB maximum size but the maximum size is
sometimes stated at 2TB because of the impracticality of larger FAT32
volumes. Although I am not sure that it would be very efficent to have
such large volumes I can tell you for sure that it is not impossible nor
unusual to have FAT32 volumes larger than 32GB.

John

PS: http://articles.networktechs.com/printer-24.html

 

[computerguy]

Hi John John,

So the reason that I was able to create and "see" two partitions is because
the Disc utility program did the formatting and partitioning. If I had used
the Win2k format command I would have been restricted to 32GB. Did I get
that right?

-GB

 

[John John]

Exactly. If I remember correctly Windows 98/ME can format FAT32 volumes
up to somewheres around 128GB. With Windows 2000 you would have have to
create multiple 32MB volumes or use the NTFS file system instead of FAT32.

John