Hello Alan,

At 02:00 PM 4/20/98 +1000, you wrote:

>Windows98 suggests the option of using Fat32.
>Will changing a partition to Fat32 affect programs already installed on
>it, such as 32 bit ones and 16 bit games?.
>Fat32 promises more disk space and faster access which could be a
>benefit on a disk almost filled.

  I am a Windows 98 beta tester. The FAT-32 file system does effect some
16-bit programs, although the "well written" DOS programs work very well.

  The FAT-32 file system was rebuilt for Windows 98. The FAT-32 in OEM
Service Release 2x is not the same.  The new FAT-32 in Windows 98 is much
faster, more reliable, and you can upgrade FAT-16 to FAT-32 with the
utility that comes with Windows 98.

  The benefits are more than just making more space for data on a hard
drive. In fact on a FAT-16 formatted 2GB hard drive the cluster size is
32kB, on a FAT-32 2GB hard drive it is 4kB. As you can see the slack space
is decreased dramatically. Also the Maximum Partition size on FAT-16 is
2GB, on FAT32 is something like 1TB.

  There is one thing I am not sure of though.  Does FAT-32 still have the
1024 cylinder barrier? This is question that I would be very interested in.
Especially since some hard drive manufacturers have 11+GB IDE hard drives
available. I do know NT can read above 1024 cylinders with it's NTFS.


Regards,

Tim Lider
Advanced Data Solutions              ICQ: 7562541
Web Site: http://www.adv-data.com E-Mail: Mailto:[log in to unmask]