Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!usc!wuarchive!uunet!odetics!frank
From: frank@odetics.com (Frank Merrow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: How do FAT tables differ between DOS 3.2 and DOS 4.x?
Message-ID: <1990Nov19.221542.5827@odetics.com>
Date: 19 Nov 90 22:15:42 GMT
Reply-To: frank@odetics.com (Frank Merrow)
Distribution: na
Organization: Odetics, Inc., Anaheim, CA
Lines: 21

Hi,

My machine was purchased long enough ago that DOS 3.2 was the best available
at the time.  Even though I have a 40Meg drive I have never been able
to get at more than 32Megs of it.  I was considering purchasing DOS 4.x to
get at the extra 8Megs, but I got to looking at the way the drive is currently
defined.  Since the 32Meg partition has (almost exactly) 16K clusters in it
seems likely that the DOS 3.2 limitation was 16K clusters in a partition.

THE QUESTION:

I have LOTS of small files.  If DOS 4.x allows larger partitions by giving
me 4k (or more) clusters instead of the 2k I have now, I will likely NOT
get ANY benifit out of the larger partition.  Does DOS 4.x get at the extra
space with a bigger FAT table (more clusters) or by bigger clusters?  Also
my "Mace Utilities" dates from this time as well.  Does anyone know off hand
if an "older" version of Mace can handle DOS 4.x partitions, or will I need
to update/repurchase?

Frank
frank@odetics.com or uunet!odetics!frank