PC Pals Forum

Technical Help & Discussion => Self Building, Upgrading & General Hardware Help => Topic started by: JK on May 19, 2004, 13:18

Title: Hard drive partioning
Post by: JK on May 19, 2004, 13:18

Hi
Need some advice about partioning a new 80G hard drive.
I use Windows ME with FAT32. Should I have it as one
partion, or two? I have seen comments in a PC magazine
saying that large partions cause problems if you use FAT32.

Title: Re:Hard drive partioning
Post by: Sandra on May 19, 2004, 14:10

I havent heard of a problem with 80 gig as FAT 32  ???
The advantage of partitioning the drive is that if you get a problem with your OS then you can just format the partition that it is on and reinstall to that partition, without losing any saved data on the second partition.
Therefore I would partition it for that reason rather than anything to do with the size of the drive and FAT 32  :)

Title: Re:Hard drive partioning
Post by: Tony on May 19, 2004, 14:28

I'll second Our Sandra  :)

Title: Re:Hard drive partioning
Post by: JK on May 21, 2004, 20:48

Hi Sandra
Thank you for your reply.
I have heard that you should not have a FAT32 partition larger
that 64G, as file utilities such as ScanDisk hit internal limits.

Title: Re:Hard drive partioning
Post by: JK on May 29, 2004, 22:50

Hi Sandra
I have checked and found out that there is a FAT32 limit it's 64G.Although you can have a bigger size it will cause problems, scan disk and other tools with lockup. I have now made my new 80G drive into two partions.

Title: Re:Hard drive partioning
Post by: Sandra on May 30, 2004, 01:31

Thanks for that JK, I hadnt come across that before but as I said its always beter to have your OS on a seperate partition anyway  :)

Title: Re:Hard drive partioning
Post by: JK on May 30, 2004, 21:58

Thank you very much Sandra.
Found out about the 64G limit in a computer mag. You can have
a larger partion, but it will cause problems and lockup's with
windows disk utilites.

Title: Re:Hard drive partioning
Post by: ketamininja on June 01, 2004, 19:28

^ but no one uses the Windows tools??? :p

My advise would be to upgrade to XP Home if your PC can handle it.