Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!ut-sally!ut-emx!mybest!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.uu.net (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Need info - Using large capacity hard disk w/MS-DOS
Message-ID: <831@bigtex.uu.net>
Date: 17 Feb 88 00:01:51 GMT
References: <5561@sgistl.SGI.COM> <4583@ecsvax.UUCP> <3093@cup.portal.com>
Organization: F.B.N. Software, Austin TX
Lines: 38
Summary: Compaq's DOS handles large disks correctly

In article <3093@cup.portal.com>, truett@cup.portal.com writes:
> With regard to MS-DOS being able to handle multiple partitions on a hard disk:

> 4) It is possible, using third-party software, to create DOS readable
>    partitions which are larger than 32 MB.  Programs that do this include
>    VFeature, Speedstor, and Disk Mechanic.  I believe the Mace Utilities can
>    also do this.

Compaq DOS 3.31 (I think this is the correct revision) does this directly
without all the fancy footwork.  Probably a better solution too, as it
eliminates the need for large pseudo-sector sizes, or whatever the current
trick is.

> 5) As far as I know, none of these can create a DOS bootable (active)
>    partition which is larger than 32 MB.  Thus, the usual practice is to
>    create a small DOS boot partition (say 1-2 MB) and either put all the rest
>    of the drive into a single large DOS readable partition or split the drive
>    up as desired.  [ ... ]

Compaq's DOS can do what is desired in a single bootable partition.  I don't
know if it supports multiple DOS partitions on a drive anyway.

>    [ ... ]
>    (As an aside, I understand that some versions of
>    UNIX, with a 65K limit on the number of entries in the inode table for a
>    device, has problems with really big disks.)

This is not quite right: that's 64K inodes per file system.  Virtually all unix
systems have at least / and /usr on two different file systems, and those with
active administrators tend to have several others.  With Microport's unix it is
possible to have several System V partitions within each fdisk partition.  If
you have only four partitions on a gigabyte disk drive (I find this unlikely
on so large a disk for administrative reasons), you can have 256K files, for a
reasonable average of 4K per file (DOS users: an "inode" is equivalent to a
"file").
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen    ...!uunet!utastro!bigtex!james     "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746