On 12 Apr 99, at 13:44, Rob wrote:

> I understand the differences between the two, but I am a little confused on
> some of the other issuses.
>
> I know that two computors cannot be networked one using Fat 16 and the other
> using FAT 32, but is data able to be shared by way of removable media
> (floppies, zip disks and RW CD's, etc) ?

  Ummm .... no.

  FAT16 and FAT32 are hard drive formats.  Floppies, zip disks, and CDs
all have their own formats; the one used on floppies is kind of a
subset of FAT, but consider that a coincidence.
  [I have not experimented with moving Zip disks between PC and Mac,
but most modern Macs can read and write PC-formatted floppies.]

  When machines are networked, requests for files get handled by the OS
on the machine that the device is attached to.  So a FAT32 hard drive
on a server is accessible to networked machines even if their OSes know
only FAT16.  In general, networking hides thes differences.


> If I convert to Fat 32 at the time of fdisk/format or with
> Microsoft's conversion utility am I able to convert back with a 3rd
> party utility or do I have to have the 3rd party utility installed
> and use it to convert to Fat 32 in order to be able to convert back
> to Fat 16 if I feel like I need to?

  FAT32 is FAT32 -- nothing records how it got that way.  Specifically,
I have successfully used Partition Magic to convert FAT32 partitions --
created with any of Win95 OSR2, Win98, or PM itself, to FAT16, and I
would expect similar success with other tools.  [I have done this for
various reasons, such as to install DriveSpace or NT (dual boot).]


David G

            PCBUILD maintains many useful files for download
              on our web site - visit our download page at:
                     http://nospin.com/pc/files.html