FAT 16 to FAT 32 without data loss....

H

Harry Conover

Guest
The title pretty well summarizes the challenge. I am installing
Windows XP Pro on a system currently running Windows 95, largely to
expand the disk space from 4-drives at 8-gigs each to 4-drives at
70-gig each.

The problem is that everything worth saving is stored on the 8-gig
system drive, along with the Windows 95 operating system. How can I
save my precious programs and data, some of which is 15 years old,
while expanding disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.

Initial experiments reveal that you cannot copy files from an FAT 16
drive to a Fat 32 drive, since the operating system appears to
recognize only one FAT size at a time. The solution that I am
considering is to copy each of my files to a CD, then reload them on
the new system and attempt to integrate them with the new Windows XP
operating systems, still there must be an easier way.

Transfer of the data is easy, but a clean transfer of the programs
themselves is not easy, because in many cases I don't have the
original installation disks.

Any helpful suggestions would be appreciated.

Harry C.
 
"Harry Conover" wrote ...
The title pretty well summarizes the challenge. I am
installing Windows XP Pro on a system currently running
Windows 95, largely to expand the disk space from 4-drives
at 8-gigs each to 4-drives at 70-gig each.

The problem is that everything worth saving is stored
on the 8-gig system drive, along with the Windows 95
operating system. How can I save my precious programs
and data, some of which is 15 years old, while expanding
disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.
Click to expand...
You have 15-year old data still spinning around on a
hard drive? WITHOUT SECONDARY STORAGE/
BACKUP? The hairs on the back of my neck stood on
end as I read that!

Write yourself some CDR disks of your data before
you go to sleep tonight!!!

Transfer of the data is easy, but a clean transfer of
the programs themselves is not easy, because in many
cases I don't have the original installation disks.
Click to expand...
WHY do you not have the original installation disks?
HOW do you know that any of those programs (and
specifically those versions) will RUN on XP?
May be time to buy upgraded versions of the software(s).
Surely you still have the serial numbers, codes, etc.
Otherwise, you're likely screwed.
 
"Harry Conover" <hhc314@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7ce4e226.0401132111.2f415b0e@posting.google.com...
The problem is that everything worth saving is stored on the 8-gig
system drive, along with the Windows 95 operating system. How can I
save my precious programs and data, some of which is 15 years old,
while expanding disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.

Initial experiments reveal that you cannot copy files from an FAT 16
drive to a Fat 32 drive, since the operating system appears to
recognize only one FAT size at a time. The solution that I am
considering is to copy each of my files to a CD, then reload them on
the new system and attempt to integrate them with the new Windows XP
operating systems, still there must be an easier way.
Click to expand...
First, I'd recommend buring your data to CD either way. Next, the program
Partition Magic will convert your drive from FAT16 to FAT32, without data
loss. I've had good luck doing this, but I wouldnt attempt it without a data
backup.

If you dont want to spend the $70, I'd recommed transfering using CDs. There
are all sorts of programs designed to help back up drives to CD, but I dont
have much experience with them.

You might have some luck booting into DOS and copying files, but I'm not
sure. Beyond that, you could put the drive into a strictly FAT16 machine and
connecting the two via ethernet. But I'm guessing you dont have a FAT16
machine handy.

Joe
 
"Joe Bott" <zor@execpc.com> wrote in message
news:ZZdNb.40595$VV4.17168@twister.rdc-kc.rr.com...
"Harry Conover" <hhc314@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7ce4e226.0401132111.2f415b0e@posting.google.com...
The problem is that everything worth saving is stored on the 8-gig
system drive, along with the Windows 95 operating system. How can I
save my precious programs and data, some of which is 15 years old,
while expanding disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.

Initial experiments reveal that you cannot copy files from an FAT 16
drive to a Fat 32 drive, since the operating system appears to
recognize only one FAT size at a time. The solution that I am
considering is to copy each of my files to a CD, then reload them on
the new system and attempt to integrate them with the new Windows XP
operating systems, still there must be an easier way.

First, I'd recommend buring your data to CD either way. Next, the program
Partition Magic will convert your drive from FAT16 to FAT32, without data
loss. I've had good luck doing this, but I wouldnt attempt it without a
data
backup.

If you dont want to spend the $70, I'd recommed transfering using CDs.
There
are all sorts of programs designed to help back up drives to CD, but I
dont
have much experience with them.

You might have some luck booting into DOS and copying files, but I'm not
sure. Beyond that, you could put the drive into a strictly FAT16 machine
and
connecting the two via ethernet. But I'm guessing you dont have a FAT16
machine handy.

Joe

The easiest way is probably going to be the networking route then copy it
Click to expand...
across to a new machine. It's old software that won't require registry, but
you may have to play for a while copying files till you've picked up any
strays required in %windows/system. The new PC may just be another W95
since, as mentioned, you won't know if the software will work with anything
later. Ah, versionitis.......

Ken
 
hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) wrote:

The title pretty well summarizes the challenge. I am installing
Windows XP Pro on a system currently running Windows 95, largely to
expand the disk space from 4-drives at 8-gigs each to 4-drives at
70-gig each.

The problem is that everything worth saving is stored on the 8-gig
system drive, along with the Windows 95 operating system. How can I
save my precious programs and data, some of which is 15 years old,
while expanding disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.

Initial experiments reveal that you cannot copy files from an FAT 16
drive to a Fat 32 drive, since the operating system appears to
recognize only one FAT size at a time. The solution that I am
considering is to copy each of my files to a CD, then reload them on
the new system and attempt to integrate them with the new Windows XP
operating systems, still there must be an easier way.

Transfer of the data is easy, but a clean transfer of the programs
themselves is not easy, because in many cases I don't have the
original installation disks.

Any helpful suggestions would be appreciated.

Harry C.
Click to expand...
1. Check that the PC BIOS and the IDE controller can handle 70gb drives. Is it
possible that the reason you're using 8gb drives now is that the PC motherboard
doesn't support larger drives?

There's a long and involved procedure that can get around using one of the
commercial tools, such as Partition Magic, but I would suggest using the tool.

More about me: http://www.jecarter.com/
VB3/VB6/C/PowerBasic source code: http://www.jecarter.com/programs.html
Freeware for the Palm with NS Basic source code: http://nsb.jecarter.com
Drivers for Pablo graphics tablet and JamCam cameras: http://home.earthlink.net/~mwbt/
johnecarter at@at mindspring dot.dot com. Fix the obvious to reply by email.
 
On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 01:03:54 GMT, look@message.body said...
hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) wrote:

The title pretty well summarizes the challenge. I am installing
Windows XP Pro on a system currently running Windows 95, largely to
expand the disk space from 4-drives at 8-gigs each to 4-drives at
70-gig each.

The problem is that everything worth saving is stored on the 8-gig
system drive, along with the Windows 95 operating system. How can I
save my precious programs and data, some of which is 15 years old,
while expanding disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.

Initial experiments reveal that you cannot copy files from an FAT 16
drive to a Fat 32 drive, since the operating system appears to
recognize only one FAT size at a time.
Click to expand...
I think this is bar-room BS. I've had multiple OS and data
partitions and NT and later OS's read 'em all. I can move data from
one partition to the other. I'm pretty sure at one time I still had
a FAT16 partition, too. Yup. Still do. It's out the door soon, too.

The solution that I am
considering is to copy each of my files to a CD, then reload them on
the new system and attempt to integrate them with the new Windows XP
operating systems, still there must be an easier way.

Transfer of the data is easy, but a clean transfer of the programs
themselves is not easy, because in many cases I don't have the
original installation disks.
Click to expand...
2k and XP installs give you the option of moving apps.
Any helpful suggestions would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
NTI Backup NOW! That's a program.
Harry C.

1. Check that the PC BIOS and the IDE controller can handle 70gb drives. Is it
possible that the reason you're using 8gb drives now is that the PC motherboard
doesn't support larger drives?
Click to expand...
Yup. Wasn't it a 4 GB limit, though?
There's a long and involved procedure that can get around using one of the
commercial tools, such as Partition Magic, but I would suggest using the tool.

More about me: http://www.jecarter.com/
VB3/VB6/C/PowerBasic source code: http://www.jecarter.com/programs.html
Freeware for the Palm with NS Basic source code: http://nsb.jecarter.com
Drivers for Pablo graphics tablet and JamCam cameras: http://home.earthlink.net/~mwbt/
johnecarter at@at mindspring dot.dot com. Fix the obvious to reply by email.
Click to expand...
--
Best Regards,
Mike
 
If you don't want to risk conversion install XP or 2000 on the new drive and
copy from the old drive to the new drive.

Original win95 cannot see FAT32 but newer OS can see FAT16 and copy it to
its FAT32 or NTFS.

So just install the 2 drives or to be REALY SAFE install only the new drive
and put the OS on it. Then, once finished put the old one back in as a slave
and copy it over.

Of course, as mentioned the only programs that this will work for are the
ones that don't install a whole crap load of components and registry entries
all over the system.

Besides, if the programs did add a bunch of components and registry entries
they probably aren't very XP friendly anyway. Though the really old 15+ apps
are hopefully single EXE files that will work....


Also, 8gig on a FAT16 system? no way, you must have it broken into diff
partitions, correct?!?



"Harry Conover" <hhc314@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7ce4e226.0401132111.2f415b0e@posting.google.com...
The title pretty well summarizes the challenge. I am installing
Windows XP Pro on a system currently running Windows 95, largely to
expand the disk space from 4-drives at 8-gigs each to 4-drives at
70-gig each.

The problem is that everything worth saving is stored on the 8-gig
system drive, along with the Windows 95 operating system. How can I
save my precious programs and data, some of which is 15 years old,
while expanding disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.

Initial experiments reveal that you cannot copy files from an FAT 16
drive to a Fat 32 drive, since the operating system appears to
recognize only one FAT size at a time. The solution that I am
considering is to copy each of my files to a CD, then reload them on
the new system and attempt to integrate them with the new Windows XP
operating systems, still there must be an easier way.

Transfer of the data is easy, but a clean transfer of the programs
themselves is not easy, because in many cases I don't have the
original installation disks.

Any helpful suggestions would be appreciated.

Harry C.
Click to expand...
 
"Active8" <mTHISREMOVEcolasono@earthlink.net,invalid> wrote in message
news:MPG.1a70613746f54e2198987e@news.west.earthlink.net...
On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 01:03:54 GMT, look@message.body said...
hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) wrote:

The title pretty well summarizes the challenge. I am installing
Windows XP Pro on a system currently running Windows 95, largely to
expand the disk space from 4-drives at 8-gigs each to 4-drives at
70-gig each.

The problem is that everything worth saving is stored on the 8-gig
system drive, along with the Windows 95 operating system. How can I
save my precious programs and data, some of which is 15 years old,
while expanding disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.

Initial experiments reveal that you cannot copy files from an FAT 16
drive to a Fat 32 drive, since the operating system appears to
recognize only one FAT size at a time.

I think this is bar-room BS. I've had multiple OS and data
partitions and NT and later OS's read 'em all. I can move data from
one partition to the other. I'm pretty sure at one time I still had
a FAT16 partition, too. Yup. Still do. It's out the door soon, too.

The solution that I am
considering is to copy each of my files to a CD, then reload them on
the new system and attempt to integrate them with the new Windows XP
operating systems, still there must be an easier way.

Transfer of the data is easy, but a clean transfer of the programs
themselves is not easy, because in many cases I don't have the
original installation disks.

2k and XP installs give you the option of moving apps.

Any helpful suggestions would be appreciated.

NTI Backup NOW! That's a program.

Harry C.

1. Check that the PC BIOS and the IDE controller can handle 70gb drives.
Is it
possible that the reason you're using 8gb drives now is that the PC
motherboard
doesn't support larger drives?

Yup. Wasn't it a 4 GB limit, though?
Click to expand...

Actually FAT16 is limited to 2GB partitions. The BIOS limit can be overcome
most of the time by disk overlays that almost all large drives I know of
ship with. Also, if the PC is really old, like this one sounds like, you
will need to use the cylinder limit jumper on the new drive (if it has one).




There's a long and involved procedure that can get around using one of
the
commercial tools, such as Partition Magic, but I would suggest using the
tool.

More about me: http://www.jecarter.com/
VB3/VB6/C/PowerBasic source code: http://www.jecarter.com/programs.html
Freeware for the Palm with NS Basic source code: http://nsb.jecarter.com
Drivers for Pablo graphics tablet and JamCam cameras:
http://home.earthlink.net/~mwbt/
johnecarter at@at mindspring dot.dot com. Fix the obvious to reply by
email.


--
Best Regards,
Mike
Click to expand...
 
"Richard Crowley" <rcrowley7@xprt.net> wrote in message news:<1009kq4mu42820f@corp.supernews.com>...
"Harry Conover" wrote ...
The title pretty well summarizes the challenge. I am
installing Windows XP Pro on a system currently running
Windows 95, largely to expand the disk space from 4-drives
at 8-gigs each to 4-drives at 70-gig each.

The problem is that everything worth saving is stored
on the 8-gig system drive, along with the Windows 95
operating system. How can I save my precious programs
and data, some of which is 15 years old, while expanding
disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.

You have 15-year old data still spinning around on a
hard drive? WITHOUT SECONDARY STORAGE/
BACKUP? The hairs on the back of my neck stood on
end as I read that!
Click to expand...
I didn't mean to imply such a nightmare scenario. All of my data and
programs are periodically backed up to a duplicate system disk that is
only concurrently on line for that one purpose. Less frequent backups
go to CDRs that are kept in a different physical location.

"Compzilla" itself has four hard-drives, two of which are backups. Up
to now, two of the hard-drives were devoted to my Win95 working
operations, and the other two to trial installations of Linux and
Windows98, but as of last night are now running Windows XP Pro.

Write yourself some CDR disks of your data before
you go to sleep tonight!!!

Transfer of the data is easy, but a clean transfer of
the programs themselves is not easy, because in many
cases I don't have the original installation disks.

WHY do you not have the original installation disks?
Click to expand...
Because many of these were disributed on old 5" floppies and the
original media became useless more than 10 years ago. Others were
intended to be installed under Windows 3.0, and others consist
entirely of .exe, .bat, and library files many of which have been
repeatedly patched over the years. Some need an emulator to even run.
In general, we're talking about software that traces back 15 years or
more, much of which was originally distributed as bits, pieces, and
patches without exageration many hundreds of 360K floppies! The
original distribution media on things like the X-Windows system and
much of my embedded firmware tools is on 9-track, 1/2" computer tape.
Years back a dial-up VAX system read these tapes, and download the
files to me over a 1200-baud phone line (which sometimes took days of
time to complete). Today, even the VAX is nearing total extinction.

Fortunately, I do have original distribution disks for the more later
software, but this is mostly run of the mill commercial stuff like
Pagemaker, Microsoft Office, Autocad, Hummingbird, etc. This should be
no problem.

HOW do you know that any of those programs (and
specifically those versions) will RUN on XP?
Click to expand...
I don't, and this is why I've clung to Win95 so long. I'm expecting
that pretty much all of the DOS executables will run under XP just as
they did under the windows shell of Win95. I am worried about the
emulation software that I employ to simulate program execution on
completely different platforms. If it can't be made to run in the XP
environment, then I'll simply have to keep the Win95 platform running
for another 10 years or so, until the fielded equipment that I support
becomes extinct.

May be time to buy upgraded versions of the software(s).
Click to expand...
Most of the specialized products for developing embedded code for
specific platforms are no longer available, and in some cased the
newer versions of the software are either incompatable with the
original source code, or produce different executables than do the
originals. Franklin's 8051 development suite is an example of
this...the code produced by it Windows version is different from that
produced by its DOS version. Even Microsofts newer releases of their C
and C++ software, is incompatible with the source code written for its
earlier releases.

Surely you still have the serial numbers, codes, etc.
Otherwise, you're likely screwed.
Click to expand...
Surely not, since most of the older sofware didn't use them. A few
did, but they are not at the center of the problem.

Except for the increase in disk space FAT32 provides, the newer
releases of Windows, including XP Pro, don't really provide me with
any new capabilities of significance, so if the port of my software
and data to FAT32/Windows XP is too much of a hassle, I'll simply
continue using Win95 and keep XP as an alternative system along with
Linux.

Thanks for you suggestions.

Harry C.
 
On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 01:03:54 GMT, look@message.body said...
hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) wrote:

The title pretty well summarizes the challenge. I am installing
Windows XP Pro on a system currently running Windows 95, largely to
expand the disk space from 4-drives at 8-gigs each to 4-drives at
70-gig each.

The problem is that everything worth saving is stored on the 8-gig
system drive, along with the Windows 95 operating system. How can I
save my precious programs and data, some of which is 15 years old,
while expanding disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.

Initial experiments reveal that you cannot copy files from an FAT 16
drive to a Fat 32 drive, since the operating system appears to
recognize only one FAT size at a time.
Click to expand...
Windows XP (any version) can recognize any file system organization on
any drive on a drive-by-drive basis. There's absolutely no problem
connecting two drives, one FAT16 and one FAT32 at the same time and doing
the copy directly.

Norm
 
"Norm Dresner" <ndrez@att.net> wrote in message news:<PjCNb.19190$VS4.589044@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>...
On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 01:03:54 GMT, look@message.body said...
hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) wrote:

The title pretty well summarizes the challenge. I am installing
Windows XP Pro on a system currently running Windows 95, largely to
expand the disk space from 4-drives at 8-gigs each to 4-drives at
70-gig each.

The problem is that everything worth saving is stored on the 8-gig
system drive, along with the Windows 95 operating system. How can I
save my precious programs and data, some of which is 15 years old,
while expanding disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.

Initial experiments reveal that you cannot copy files from an FAT 16
drive to a Fat 32 drive, since the operating system appears to
recognize only one FAT size at a time.


Windows XP (any version) can recognize any file system organization on
any drive on a drive-by-drive basis. There's absolutely no problem
connecting two drives, one FAT16 and one FAT32 at the same time and doing
the copy directly.

Norm
Click to expand...
Sincere thanks for that bit of info Norm. This wouldn't work under
Win98 configured for FAT32, but I haven't yet tried it since getting
XP running only late last night. I remain a bit concerned about XP
deciding the leave some thumbprint on what is the Win95 system disk,
but will trying it using the Win95 back-up drive which I can
regenerate if it becomes corrupted.

Now, can someone tell me how to shell out to DOS from XP, and what
happened to Windows Explorer? As you can tell, I'm just beginning to
find my way around on XP. (I need DOS support for roughly half of my
legacy application, including Microsoft Fortran, MASM, GWBASIC, 8086
and 8051 tools, etc., so getting these loaded and running will be my
first priority.

Now if I can only find where to tell it my monitor model, and the
screen resolution and display characteristics I want to use, ... an a
hundred and one hardware related setup things, I should be ready to
start actually start porting some of my aps and data files.

Harry C.
 
"Harry Conover" <hhc314@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7ce4e226.0401151550.3b84ed42@posting.google.com...
"Norm Dresner" <ndrez@att.net> wrote in message
news:<PjCNb.19190$VS4.589044@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>...
On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 01:03:54 GMT, look@message.body said...
hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) wrote:

The title pretty well summarizes the challenge. I am installing
Windows XP Pro on a system currently running Windows 95, largely to
expand the disk space from 4-drives at 8-gigs each to 4-drives at
70-gig each.

The problem is that everything worth saving is stored on the 8-gig
system drive, along with the Windows 95 operating system. How can I
save my precious programs and data, some of which is 15 years old,
while expanding disk capacity to the full capacity of the drives.

Initial experiments reveal that you cannot copy files from an FAT
16
drive to a Fat 32 drive, since the operating system appears to
recognize only one FAT size at a time.


Windows XP (any version) can recognize any file system organization
on
any drive on a drive-by-drive basis. There's absolutely no problem
connecting two drives, one FAT16 and one FAT32 at the same time and
doing
the copy directly.

Norm

Sincere thanks for that bit of info Norm. This wouldn't work under
Win98 configured for FAT32, but I haven't yet tried it since getting
XP running only late last night. I remain a bit concerned about XP
deciding the leave some thumbprint on what is the Win95 system disk,
but will trying it using the Win95 back-up drive which I can
regenerate if it becomes corrupted.

Now, can someone tell me how to shell out to DOS from XP, and what
happened to Windows Explorer? As you can tell, I'm just beginning to
find my way around on XP. (I need DOS support for roughly half of my
legacy application, including Microsoft Fortran, MASM, GWBASIC, 8086
and 8051 tools, etc., so getting these loaded and running will be my
first priority.

Now if I can only find where to tell it my monitor model, and the
screen resolution and display characteristics I want to use, ... an a
hundred and one hardware related setup things, I should be ready to
start actually start porting some of my aps and data files.

Harry C.
Click to expand...
The Windows-E shortcut still brings up Explorer in XP, and using Start/Run
and running 'cmd' will bring up a DOS shell. It's not true DOS though, so
don't expect backward computability!

Ken
 
"CapMan" <mgalt@spam.charter.net> wrote in message news:<tAyNb.43241$VV4.27652@twister.rdc-kc.rr.com>...
If you don't want to risk conversion install XP or 2000 on the new drive and
copy from the old drive to the new drive.

Original win95 cannot see FAT32 but newer OS can see FAT16 and copy it to
its FAT32 or NTFS.

So just install the 2 drives or to be REALY SAFE install only the new drive
and put the OS on it. Then, once finished put the old one back in as a slave
and copy it over.

Of course, as mentioned the only programs that this will work for are the
ones that don't install a whole crap load of components and registry entries
all over the system.

Besides, if the programs did add a bunch of components and registry entries
they probably aren't very XP friendly anyway. Though the really old 15+ apps
are hopefully single EXE files that will work....

Again, thanks for this info.
Click to expand...

Also, 8gig on a FAT16 system? no way, you must have it broken into diff
partitions, correct?!?
Click to expand...
Yes,each of my hard-drives is divided into 4 partitiions, so when
activated by the CMOS menu, brings on line the equivalent of C:, D:,
E:, and F: logical disks.

Harry C.
 
On 15 Jan 2004 10:47:34 -0800, hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) Gave
us:

I don't, and this is why I've clung to Win95 so long. I'm expecting
that pretty much all of the DOS executables will run under XP just as
they did under the windows shell of Win95. I am worried about the
emulation software that I employ to simulate program execution on
completely different platforms. If it can't be made to run in the XP
environment, then I'll simply have to keep the Win95 platform running
for another 10 years or so, until the fielded equipment that I support
becomes extinct.
Click to expand...

One word...

VMWare.
 
If you need more space you can upgrade to Windows 95B or C version
(which support FAT32), as well as Windows 98 or 98 Second Edition. If
you can get an intermediate drive, you can copy from FAT16 system
drive to new drive with Northon Ghost and convert partitions with
Partition Magic. If you release some space (in the space occupied with
partitions other than C:) you can install XP "over" 9x system (create
new partition, but not C:, format NTFS), and than chose XP or 9x
system through start-up menu. If you boot XP, you will be able to see
all partitions, but if you would like to see NTFS parttion of XP
system you should use aditional programs, not included in standard
Windows installations. Or you can format XP partition as FAT32, and
upgrade Windows 95 to 95B/95C/98/98SE, and see all partitions from
whatever system you boot.



On 15 Jan 2004 10:47:34 -0800, hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) wrote:
"Compzilla" itself has four hard-drives, two of which are backups. Up
to now, two of the hard-drives were devoted to my Win95 working
operations, and the other two to trial installations of Linux and
Windows98, but as of last night are now running Windows XP Pro.
Click to expand...
 
Mirko S Veselinovic <mirkoNOSPAM@eunet.yu> wrote in message news:<mk5m00dldu93e5cjj06g8snujije66743i@4ax.com>...
If you need more space you can upgrade to Windows 95B or C version
(which support FAT32), as well as Windows 98 or 98 Second Edition. If
you can get an intermediate drive, you can copy from FAT16 system
drive to new drive with Northon Ghost and convert partitions with
Partition Magic. If you release some space (in the space occupied with
partitions other than C:) you can install XP "over" 9x system (create
new partition, but not C:, format NTFS), and than chose XP or 9x
system through start-up menu. If you boot XP, you will be able to see
all partitions, but if you would like to see NTFS parttion of XP
system you should use aditional programs, not included in standard
Windows installations. Or you can format XP partition as FAT32, and
upgrade Windows 95 to 95B/95C/98/98SE, and see all partitions from
whatever system you boot.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this Mike, but let me ask you a couple of honest, no guile
questions. When I formatted the disk-drive targeted to XP, I specified
all FAT32 partitions. Was this a mistake, now that I can still go
back and correct my error. Perhaps a naive question, but what
advantages would I gain were I to format in NTFS vs. FAT32?

With regard to Partition Magic, I tend to shy away. Back 3 years ago
working on an FAA project, someone had partitioned a disk using
Partition Magic. I'm no expert on the subject, but it appeared to me
that this product works through some sort of emulation that required
it make modification of the boot sector of system disks. Partition
Magic gave us some problem that I don't recall, but getting it off the
disk took about three days of effort, that may or may not have
required even the today draconic step of low-level formatting of the
hard-drive -- something that the manufacturers of these hard drives
definitely don't approve of.

Having just completed the installation of Windows XP Pro, I took
carefuly note that in its listing of disks it listed disk drived that
were set "off line" or "none" by the BIOS of my computer. This
capability of XP has not yet created a problem, but has taught me that
I can no longer trust my CMOS settings to determine what is, and what
is not, accessible to a piece of software. As a result, I just ordered
a removable hard-disk host, with two removable drive cartridges. I
found the fact that XP is capable of going around the CMOS settings to
access a drive pretty frightening.

Frankly, I had expected the task that I had initally targeted to be a
piece-of-cake buty it is turning out to be rather complicated and
problematic. I was perfectly content with Windows 95 as an operating
system, and simply wanted to invoke the disk space expansion that
FAT32 provided vs. FAT16, and had even believed that there was a
Microsoft Service Pack available that would do this, and only this.
Still, I couldn't locate it.

Last night came the straw that nearly broke the camel's back. I had
just intalled AT&T Worldnet package on the Win XP system, and gone
online to test it in preparation to registering Win XP with
Microsoft. (Obviously I have a valid authorizion code else I wouldn't
have progressed this far.) Worldnet installed quite easily, but while
I was testing it on the Web a message from above that identified
itself only as (sic) "NT Authority" was shutting down my system, and
then proceeded to do so. Obviously this originated from Microsoft. My
reaction was that Microsoft could do something like this at this
time,then they could do so at any time to any XP user.

Maybe I'm strange, but I really don't do well with control things like
this, so I may well abandon Microsoft XP Pro, and simply revert back
to Windows 95 while continuing to look for a way to expand my availble
disk space from that available under FAT16 to that of FAT32 (which is
all I wanted to do in the first place). I'm quite sure that if I
search around sufficiently I can find someone willing to sell be a
service pack that makes this possible, otherwise I'll simply have to
install multiple 8-GB disk-drives.

Harry C.
 
On 19 Jan 2004 19:11:43 -0800, hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) wrote:
Thanks for this Mike, but let me ask you a couple of honest, no guile
questions. When I formatted the disk-drive targeted to XP, I specified
all FAT32 partitions. Was this a mistake, now that I can still go
back and correct my error. Perhaps a naive question, but what
advantages would I gain were I to format in NTFS vs. FAT32?
Click to expand...

NTFS is advocated by some of my friends as the most robust file
system. I am not sure about that, but I am sure that I do not have
enough utilities or knowladge to recover NTFS file system errors. I
have seen not any, but those things come here and there. As for FAT32,
there are problems (like cluster waste in larger partitions), but I
have managed to recover system partition that was messed up by
installation scripts of UnixWare system. I am experimenting with XP
and NTFS, but not on my machine! So at the moment I am not sure what
to recomend to you...


With regard to Partition Magic, I tend to shy away. Back 3 years ago
working on an FAA project, someone had partitioned a disk using
Partition Magic. I'm no expert on the subject, but it appeared to me
that this product works through some sort of emulation that required
it make modification of the boot sector of system disks. Partition
Magic gave us some problem that I don't recall, but getting it off the
disk took about three days of effort, that may or may not have
required even the today draconic step of low-level formatting of the
hard-drive -- something that the manufacturers of these hard drives
definitely don't approve of.
Click to expand...

I think Partition Magic ver. 7 is safe and good and yes I had some
problems with ver.4, so nothing is safe without backup!


Having just completed the installation of Windows XP Pro, I took
carefuly note that in its listing of disks it listed disk drived that
were set "off line" or "none" by the BIOS of my computer. This
capability of XP has not yet created a problem, but has taught me that
I can no longer trust my CMOS settings to determine what is, and what
is not, accessible to a piece of software. As a result, I just ordered
a removable hard-disk host, with two removable drive cartridges. I
found the fact that XP is capable of going around the CMOS settings to
access a drive pretty frightening.

Frankly, I had expected the task that I had initally targeted to be a
piece-of-cake buty it is turning out to be rather complicated and
problematic. I was perfectly content with Windows 95 as an operating
system, and simply wanted to invoke the disk space expansion that
FAT32 provided vs. FAT16, and had even believed that there was a
Microsoft Service Pack available that would do this, and only this.
Still, I couldn't locate it.
Click to expand...
As I suggested in previous post, you could upgrade to Windows 95
version B or C and have FAT32 partitions. Those are OEM release of
Windows (OSR2; 2.1; 2.5) so if you prefer legal versions you should go
for Windows 98, or better jet Windows 98 Second Edition, which is my
favorit.


Last night came the straw that nearly broke the camel's back. I had
just intalled AT&T Worldnet package on the Win XP system, and gone
online to test it in preparation to registering Win XP with
Microsoft. (Obviously I have a valid authorizion code else I wouldn't
have progressed this far.) Worldnet installed quite easily, but while
I was testing it on the Web a message from above that identified
itself only as (sic) "NT Authority" was shutting down my system, and
then proceeded to do so. Obviously this originated from Microsoft. My
reaction was that Microsoft could do something like this at this
time,then they could do so at any time to any XP user.
Click to expand...

I have not experienced such things. On installations that I
administer, a company key was applied (OSL agreement) , and
ServicePack 1a added. So far all installations work fine, the only
thing that is bad is speed on some Celeron 400 based PC. Yes, and as
with all newer variants more memory is a must!

Maybe I'm strange, but I really don't do well with control things like
this, so I may well abandon Microsoft XP Pro, and simply revert back
to Windows 95 while continuing to look for a way to expand my availble
disk space from that available under FAT16 to that of FAT32 (which is
all I wanted to do in the first place). I'm quite sure that if I
search around sufficiently I can find someone willing to sell be a
service pack that makes this possible, otherwise I'll simply have to
install multiple 8-GB disk-drives.
Click to expand...
Service Packs ware introduced with Windows 2000 and newer, I think.
Other than previously described upgrades, I am not sure there are
other options. As for HDDs, it might be a problem to find those disks,
and if you can find tham new, cost per MB might be to high!

I hope this will be of some use...

Mirko
 
NTFS
Advantage: more efficient use of HDD space
Disadvantage: can't be accesssed by DOS-based OSes
(no booting from floppy);
requires HDD with functional NT installation.
Workaround: CD-bootable version of Linux ("Live CD" e.g. Knoppix);
Linux understands most filesystems.

If you can stand the added bloat (I'm guessing you can),
98SE sounds like the way to go:
readily available, widely documented, understands FAT32 & USB,
3000 bugs removed (accordimng to M$) since 1st version of W95
(6000 bugs according to Dvorak).
 
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