Re: NTFS -> FAT32

On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 17:55:44 +1000, "Pegasus \(MVP\)" <I.can@xxxxxxx>
wrote:

Can I increase the size of that by some other means and get Win2K to
run properly, or does the 32GB limitation apply to all FAT32 Windows
operations?

Use a third-party partition manager such as Acronis DiskDirector
or PQMagic.

So I take that to be a "Yes", I can increase the size of a FAT32 boot
partition beyond 32GB.

When I clone this disk (Acronis True Image) I can set the size of the
target partition, which I will set for the full disk.

IMHO it's a bad idea to store things other than the OS and
applications on the system partition. In this case 10 GBytes
is plenty for Win2000, or 20 GBytes for WinXP.

I fully agree - I keep data largely on a "Backup" disk, so named
because its primary function is to store daily differential backups
using NTBackup.

Essentially the only items on the boot disk are the OS and
applications and some music and image files. But I think I will move
the latter just to be consistent.

---

As a followup, I successfully converted to FAT32 but I ran into some
problems along the way.

1. I cloned the boot disk to a slave disk and limited the partition
size such that I had 32GB left unallocated.

2. I used Win2K to partition/format the unallocated part to FAT32. Now
I have C: boot disk which is not involved in any of this conversion
operations, D: an NTFS partition of the slave disk which has a clone
copy of the boot partition and F: a 32GB FAT32 partition on the slave
disk.

3. I copied the D: partition to F:. I could not get XCOPY to work, so
I used Windows Explore.

HOW DO I

XCOPY D:\ F:\ /e /h /k /c /y

4. I deleted the D: partition and repartitioned/formatted it FAT32. I
copied the F: partition to the new D: and then deleted F: partition -
all this within Win2K. I had to do this maneuver so True Image would
clone it - it does not know how to deal with unallocated space at the
beginning of the disk.

5. I had to activate the pagefile even though it was present. I used
CP->System->Advanced->Performance->Virtual Memory to set up a 2GB
pagefile (I have 512 MB RAM).

6. Two applications did not convert properly for some reason so I had
to uninstall/reintall. I may find other apps acting up, but it is easy
enough to fix them.

7. I checked WINNT subdirectory and its subdirectories, and the file
count was the same. Of course the disk usage is different because the
file system is different. You won't get the same file count if you use
"/s" in XCOPY. You have to use "/e".

The system appears to be operating satisfactorily. Thanks for your
assistance.


--

"Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverence. Talent
will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education
will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and
determination alone are omnipotent."
--Calvin Coolidge
.

Relevant Pages

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