Re: reformat HDD

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

From: Pegasus \(MVP\) (I.can_at_fly.com)
Date: 03/13/04 

Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 12:48:09 +1100

"Josef Stalin" <FatherNiceGuyJosefStalin@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1054m577demgcd2@corp.supernews.com...
>
> "Pegasus (MVP)" <I.can@fly.com> wrote in message
> news:eTWVjkICEHA.2060@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> >
> > > >
> > > > What do you despise about NTFS? Just curious.
> > >
> > > I have found it to be very vulnerable to all sorts of pesky problems.
> > >
> > > It sounds petty, but when I have a problem I want to be able to boot
up
> > with
> > > a w98 boot up disk and be able to make repairs. I haven't been able
to
> > find
> > > a DOS boot up disk that supports NTFS so far.
> >
> > Try http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#download. It ain't DOS but it lets
> > you access any NTFS partition in read/write mode, and it's free.
>
> I think I recently had look-see at that. I'm just an old fart and I like a
> command line. I was born using a command line and all these GUI's make me
> sick.

You'd better have another look. This is a bare-bones WinXP
CD, and as such it offers a Command Prompt that gives you
full access to anything located in c:\winnt\system32, plus,
of course, any of your own 16- or 32-bit tools you care include.
And, as I said, you have no hassles with NTFS permissions
or with long file names.

I was born in the good old mainframe days and I know my
Command Prompt commands inside out. In 95% of all cases
I will run circles around anyone using GUIs for file manipulation.
Even the simple command

del /s *.tmp

is way beyond the capabilities of Windows Explorer.

> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > And forget that all crap that FAT32 can't support more than 32GB. I
> have
> > a
> > > 131GB partition.
> >
> > Would you care to elaborate how you do it?
> >
>
> No secret. I'm an an open and honest guy, just like Gov. Bush. Partition
> Magic. Great Product. Buy it today. You won't regret it.

I've used PQMagic for many years, even though my current copy
is somewhat dated. Are you saying that the latest copy of PQMagic
lets you create FAT32 partitions > 32 GBytes?

AFAIR, the cluster size for a 32 GByte FAT32 partition is
32kBytes. Does this mean that your 131 GByte FAT32 partition
uses 128 kByte clusters? If so then I expect a great amount of
slack, especially in the Temporary Internet Files where my
average file size is around 700 bytes. Here is the amount of disk
space consumed by 2000 such files:

Space used on my NTFS partition: 1.4 MBytes
Space used on a FAT32 partition: 64 MBytes
Space used on your 128 GByte FAT32 partition: 128 MBytes

A tad wasteful . . .

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