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Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mcdchg!chinet!chaz
From: chaz@chinet.chi.il.us (Charlie Kestner)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d,comp.os.msdos.programmer,misc.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Help on partitioning hard disk
Message-ID: <1990Aug02.052158.2497@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 2 Aug 90 05:21:58 GMT
References: <1840@petsd.UUCP>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
Lines: 29

In article <1840@petsd.UUCP> cobb@petsd.UUCP (Christopher B. Cobb) writes:
>Keywords:
>
>I'm having problems partitioning a hard disk, and hopefully someone can
>show me the error of my ways. I have an AT compatible running MS/DOS 3.3
>with a 40MB hard disk as drive 0. I used to have a 20MB hard disk as drive
>1 (worked with no problems), but I just replaced it with an 85MB
>(unformatted) disk. The disk has 9 heads and 1024 cylinders, and my BIOS
>supports it. I have two separate formatting programs which both format the
>disk with no problems.
>
>When I tell FDISK to allocate the largest primary DOS extent it can, it
>allocates 428 cylinders for the extent (31MB and some change). When I tell
>FDISK to allocate an extended DOS extent, it allocates 1022 cylinders for
>the extent, with each logical drive being allocated as 428 cylinders. So
>far, so good. The problem is when I run FORMAT against any logical drive
>on that disk, FORMAT replies, "Invalid partition table/Format aborted".
>FDISK now reports that the disk contains no active partitions. For
>chuckles I tried allocating an extent of 200 cylinders, and that formatted
>fine. I did not have enough time to play around to see how many cylinders
>I could specify before FORMAT would barf.
>
>I heard that version 4.01 of MS/DOS does not limit the partition size of
>hard disks. Is this my answer, or is there something else I may be
>missing? My experience tells me I should not be having this problem in
>the first place. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

  Compaq DOS 3.31 will solve your limitation of 32M/partition in DOSs
under 4.01.  It will allow 512M partitions.