partitions....

[mwebber_82]

Sorry to keep re-hashing old information, but being technically inept I need to ask about my specific situation rather than guess from other past posts!! ;o)

I'm running windows '98 and want to set up a partition.
Want apps, programmes etc on one, and files (audio, mp3, documents, etc) on the other.

What type of partition do I need? Why?
How do I go about setting it up? Preferably without starting again (although can do if REALLY required).
Do I require partition magic or can I use FDisk (think I've heard someone mention it?!)?

Thanks for your time and help guys...

[Floydian]

Hi

Since you are using Windows 98, you need a Fat32 partition, and due to the fact that your using it for audio files, you might want to format it to use 32kb Cluster size. This means that data will be transferred from that partition in 32kb packages, allowing for less packages to be sent when opening large (audio) files.

You can setup a partition in fdisk, but I don't think you can resize or split a partition. That means your going to have to kill all your partitions (which means loosing all your data) and make them as you want them. Like, say you've got a 20gb hard disk and want a 5gb Windows drive and a 15gb audio drive, then you'd setup a Primary Dos Partition of 5gb and make it Active (only one partition can be Active and that needs to be the one which your operating system is on). You would then setup a 15gb Extended Dos partition and then create a 15gb Logical Dos Drive.

You can however resize and create and move partitions (and do more stuff too) with partition magic so if you don't want the hassels of playing with fdisk and needing to reinstall everything, then you might want to consider using partition magic.

Also, I can use fdisk to partition my 40gb drive but not my 80gb drive as it seems to only see it as a 16gb drive or something like that.

hope this helps

[TeleCarlos]

Hi there,

Regarding using fdisk, exactly what happened that it will not let you partition your 80gig+ HDisk Mr. Floyd?

I will be installing a 100 gig drive only for audio data on mine and wanted to divvy it up into a few partitions myself.

I have used fdisk before but on a 40 gig drive. Does anybody know why is Floyd having problems. Is it some sort of limitation of this old utility?
If it is, I'm I required to get Partition Magic for these chores?

Thanks to u all.

[+Erik.+]

i think fdisk is limited to the size of the drive. it's a very old utility.

if you use XP you can partition in there on setup. Else partition magic or an equivalent program is needed.

Partition Magic 7 supports disc sizes up to 80gb (so the box says) and Partition Magic 8 supports disk sizes over 120gb. So even these programs have disc size limits.

Partition Magic 3 for instance only supported up to 17gb or something!

[Floydian]

Hey TeleCarlos

My problem with fdisk was that it didn't recognise my 80gig hdd as 80gigs, only thought it was around 20gig or something like that, so I couldn't give it appropriate sizes as they were all too big (I wanted 2 40gig partitions and that's pretty hard to squeeze out of a 20gig hdd, well so thinks fdisk anyway)