FAT16

[AMG]

I have a vague recollection, probably from the DOS days, that FAT16 drives have a max partition size of 2GB and that it can only handle the first 1024 sectors or clusters (i forget which) of a disk volume hence a maximum volume size of about 8GB. FAT32 changes all this, of course, but there is something that was mentioned in Infoworld recently about FAT32X. Can anyone help clarify these issues?

[This message has been edited by AMG (edited 11-09-98).]

[Steve Rosenthal]

FAT16 can recognize partitions of up to 4096MB (4GB).

--Steve Rosenthal, Digidesign ETS

[Przemek]

Are you sure? I've always thought that it is 2GB - at least in WIN95. Maybe NT differ?
Przemek.

[Steve Rosenthal]

Yup. I'm sure. DOS does not recognize partitions larger than 2048MB, but 95 and NT do.

--Steve Rosenthal, Digidesign ETS

[AMG]

I did some research and found a good article in an issue of PC Magazine online from last year that talks about the differences of FAT16 and FAT32. It explains that the upper limit of a partition in FAT16 is 4GB and that the upper limit of 2GB was not imposed by the OS but rather by applications.

[Steve Rosenthal]

Can you post the URL?

Thanks.

--Steve Rosenthal, Digidesign ETS

[AMG]

The URL for the FAT16/FAT32 article is:

http://www-cia.mty.itesm.mx/~gflores...s1607.001.html

It is a PC Magazine article written just when Microsoft released the 95 service pack that supported FAT32

[Steve Rosenthal]

Thanks!

--Steve Rosenthal, Digidesign ETS

[AMG]

Hey Steve,

So with your help and PC magazine, I've gotten the first part of my question answered. But what about the number of partitions supported per volume supported by FAT16? Can we use an 18GB drive and partition it into 5 partitions?

And what info can you shed on FAT32X?

[Steve Rosenthal]

There is a 4 partition limit per drive under FAT16.

Currently, we don't support FAT32. NT cannot create FAT32 volumes. They can only be created using Win98 or certain versions of Win95.

I don't know what plans, if any, there are for FAT32 support, but considering that it is non-native to NT I doubt anything will happen soon.

--Steve Rosenthal, Digidesign ETS