FAT 32 Partition Size

[Axel Beck]

Hi folks,
I'm about ready to partition my second hard drive. One partition will
be for a Drive Image 7 pic of my C: drive. I want to be able to access
this from DOS so I'll want to make it a FAT 32 partition. I'm thinking
of a partition of about 10 gigs. Will I have any problems with FAT 32
or DOS with a partition this size? Thanks, Axel

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Other than the fact that FAT isn't very efficient compared to NTFS, I don't
see why not.

When you say you want to be able to access this from DOS, do you mean you're
going to install a DOS-based OS for dual boot? If instead you mean you want
to be able to boot up via a DOS boot disk and see your stuff, look at
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdospro.shtml for another
option.

 

[Bob Harris]

I have a 50Gig partition formated as FAT32, used to store GHOST images. It
works fine and is accessible from a DOS boot floppy.

 

[CS]

Hi folks,
I'm about ready to partition my second hard drive. One partition will
be for a Drive Image 7 pic of my C: drive. I want to be able to access
this from DOS so I'll want to make it a FAT 32 partition. I'm thinking
of a partition of about 10 gigs. Will I have any problems with FAT 32
or DOS with a partition this size? Thanks, Axel

You won't have problems with a partition that size either using FAT-32
or from a DOS prompt. However, you do know that the restore feature
of Drive Image 7.X will very nicely be able to "see" a NTFS partition
as well?

 

[Plato]

I'm about ready to partition my second hard drive. One partition will
be for a Drive Image 7 pic of my C: drive. I want to be able to access
this from DOS so I'll want to make it a FAT 32 partition. I'm thinking
of a partition of about 10 gigs. Will I have any problems with FAT 32
or DOS with a partition this size? Thanks, Axel

No problem at all. In fact, FAT32 partitions can be much higher.

 

[Rock]

Hi folks,
I'm about ready to partition my second hard drive. One partition will
be for a Drive Image 7 pic of my C: drive. I want to be able to access
this from DOS so I'll want to make it a FAT 32 partition. I'm thinking
of a partition of about 10 gigs. Will I have any problems with FAT 32
or DOS with a partition this size? Thanks, Axel

Drive Image will work fine from an NTFS partition. The DI CD is
bootable, dubbed the PowerQuest Recovery Environment. It will be able
to see the images stored on either an NTFS or FAT32 formatted partition.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I'm about ready to partition my second hard drive. One partition will
be for a Drive Image 7 pic of my C: drive. I want to be able to access
this from DOS so I'll want to make it a FAT 32 partition. I'm thinking
of a partition of about 10 gigs. Will I have any problems with FAT 32
or DOS with a partition this size?

One point is that there is a transition at 8GB where the cluster size
for FAT 32 goes up from 4 to 8 KB. It might be best to keep just under
that.

Also note that you will need the DOS of say a Win98 startup floppy to
access FAT 32 - old DOS 6 or earlier (and that of original Win95) do not

 

[Darrell]

Hi folks,
I'm about ready to partition my second hard drive. One partition will
be for a Drive Image 7 pic of my C: drive. I want to be able to access
this from DOS so I'll want to make it a FAT 32 partition. I'm thinking
of a partition of about 10 gigs. Will I have any problems with FAT 32
or DOS with a partition this size? Thanks, Axel

An alternative is to make it an NTFS partition. Rather than DOS, boot to
your DI 7 CD. It is bootable so it is available (like DOS) even if
something prevents you from accessing your C: drive. It can "see"
everything and you can use it that way to restore your DI image to the C:
drive. But, rather than a partition, why don't you buy an external USB 2.0
hard drive. They've gotten pretty cheap. I have had a 40 GB external drive
for a couple years. It cost less than $100 back then so you can probably
find a 10GB 2.0 external hard drive today much cheaper. I have mine powered
by a surge suppressor that I normally keep turned off unless I need it.
That way my backup is separate and off-line which protects the data pretty
well. If your hard drive crashes it will take your partition with it. With
an external image you can buy a new hard drive, set it up, then boot to the
DI CD and restore your image to the new C: drive.