Hi again, > When formatting a harddisk partition (or flash or whatever the actual > medium is), MS FORMAT relies on a correct boot sector already having been > created by FDISK. I discovered this not long ago when I tried to resize a > partition by tweaking the MBR with a sector editor.
You cannot resize a FAT filesystem by just changing the partitions: The boot sector describes the size of FAT and filesystem. DOS needs that even when you change partition sizes later. However, it should be sufficient to zap the boot sector before formating to new size. Or start but then abort a non-quick format :-) Or, maybe better, use tools to truly resize the filesystem. With smart algorithms, this can get away with editing only the FAT and directory data in some cases. > had to change the size in the partition's boot sector as well. And this is > just to perform a slow format. As for quick format, it doesn't work unless > the partition has previously been slow-formatted to create a valid FAT. This limitation should not be present in FreeDOS: Default there is for harddisks to do a quick format, either with or without saving "unformat" data depending on whether there already was a filesystem. > This behavior makes sense in the context of FAT16 where the disk is > checked for bad clusters which can then be marked in the FAT. In the > context of FAT32, not so much... In FreeDOS, even slow format defaults to NOT check for bad clusters for harddisks, unless you explicitly use the /U option. Even then, you can abort the wipe / surface check process half-way. FORMAT will still be complete then, just without the rest of the wipe and check. The fastest mode in FreeDOS FORMAT is /Q /U which explicitly does not try to save unformat data. It just creates empty FAT, boot and root. Regards, Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration & more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
