>> Jim Gemeinhardt wrote:
>> Could someone please give the maximum and minimum partition
>> sizes for the various operating systems.
Jim:
If there isn't LBA support or a software translation,
a drive will be limited to 1024 cylinders and will be
limited to 504 MB, regardless of OS.
Older LBA support will end at 4096 cylinders, posing a
2.1 GB limit.
In the modern DOS era and with Windows FAT16, the limit is
2.1 GB. However, NT's FAT16 has a limit of 4 GB (but DOS/Win
cannot see the volume).
Some BIOS support top out at 8100 cylinders which pose
a 4.2 GB limit. A BIOS upgrade may cure this.
With FAT32, the limit is 2 terabytes; however, if you don't
have the latest INT13 extensions, the boot partition will not
be larger then 8 GB. This applies to both IDE and SCSI hard
disk drives. A BIOS upgrade, software translation, or advanced
controller with the latest onboard BIOS support may obviate
this limitation.
NTFS theoretically goes to 16 exabytes.
There are various books, FAQs and white papers on these
drive limitations but I haven't seen one place that has
all the details for all operating systems and hardware, one
that I would recommend. Hope this is fairly complete and
accurate.
Regards,
John Chin
http://profchin.virtualave.net/
P.S. To add to Jim Meagher's FAT table:
FAT 32 CLUSTER SIZES
Volume Size Cluster Size
---------------------- ------------
512 MB to 8,191 MB 4 KB
8,192 MB to 16,383 MB 8 KB
16,384 MB to 32,767 MB 16 KB
32GB and greater 32 KB
NTFS Cluster Sizes
Volume Size Cluster Size
--------------------- ------------
512MB or less 512 bytes
513MB to 1024MB(1GB) 1KB
1025MB to 2048MB(2GB) 2KB
2049MB to 4096MB(4GB) 4KB
4097MB to 8192MB(8GB) 8KB
8193MB to 16384MB(16GB) 16KB
16385MB to 32768MB(32GB) 32KB
over 32768MB (32GB) 64KB
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