Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!mtune!lzaz!lznv!psc
From: psc@lznv.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: upgrading to MS-DOS 3.2 (was: 3 1/2 drive on MS-DOS 2.11)
Message-ID: <1251@lznv.ATT.COM>
Date: 12 Jan 88 18:05:13 GMT
References: <1989@houxa.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T
Lines: 29
Summary: should but don't need to reformat hard disk

In article <1989@houxa.UUCP>, egauss@houxa.UUCP (E.GAUSS) writes:
> The store wants me to go to MS-DOS 3.2 which I may have to do but I want
> to avoid for two reasons. . . .  (2) Migration to 3.2 is is supposed
> to require that I dump my hard disk, reformat it, and then restore
> it, and this is a messy job that I would prefer to avoid.
> 
> Ed Gauss, ...!ihnp4!houxa!egauss

There are two concerns here:  finding room for the BIOS.COM and DOS.COM
hidden files, and the cluster size feature.  There have been
conflicting reports on how easy it is to put a new version of MS-DOS on
a hard disk with SYS.  (The two files have to be at the very beginning
of your disk.  Having tools like the Norton Utilities, the Mace
Utilities, or PC Tools may help you make room there.  I think the two
files also have to be the first two entries in the root directory.

If you upgrade to AT&T MS-DOS 3.2, you can repartion (and then
reformat) your hard disk to use 2K clusters.  A "cluster" is the
smallest chunk of disk that DOS will allocate for a file.  That means
you'll waste 1K of disk per file on average (nearly 2K per small file),
rather than 4K average (8K per small file) for a 20M hard disk under
older versions of DOS.

(Yes, this feature was available in version 3.1 of PC-DOS and many
other companies' MS-DOS.  Don't ask me, I just work here.)

-Paul S. R. Chisholm, {ihnp4,cbosgd,allegra,rutgers}!mtune!lznv!psc
AT&T Mail !psrchisholm, Internet psc@lznv.att.com
I'm not speaking for my employer, I'm just speaking my mind.