Partitioning with DOS's fdisk

[FrankSG]

Someone will be giving me a used computer. It will be just an extra computer that I can play around with. I don't know what the hard-disk size will be, but probable several GB. I will want to partition it using DOS's fdisk.exe. My question is: Is there a size limit that fdisk will handle? Thanks in advance.
~Frank~

[pentachris]

If you use the FDISK that comes with Windows 98 or 98SE, the limit is 64GB. But there's a fix.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q263044/

Of course, this won't fix any BIOS limitations the computer may have...

[Paul Komski]

I think it depends on which version of DOS/Windows it came bundled with. There is a lot about Fdisk at http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk/ but if you are set on using fdisk and not something like Ranish or BootIt-NG then free-fdisk from http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/ is a very good version to have in your possession.

[FrankSG]

Paul--Guess what. My brain happened to kick into gear a minute ago and I just thought of something. I have System Commander. I haven't used it all that much so I'm not too familiar with it. But there's no reason I need to use FDISK is there? I would certainly think that it will do every think that FDISK would do and a whole lot more shouldn't it?

[classicsoftware]

Open the case. Look at the brand of hard drive. Get their diagnostics and you can format the drive any way you want. Much easier than FDSIK.

[Paleo Pete]

I agree, the manufacturer's drive software usually fits on a floppy and does a great job, and a lot faster than fdisk & format or the Windows setup. I did a 30GB drive a few days ago with Western Digital's Data Lifeguard, 10 minutes including boot time. Fdisk would take 2 hours just to format plus partitioning time with fdisk and a couple of reboots. In this case I was going for XP on a customer's machine, XP setup would take 2 hours or close to format the same drive.

The nice thing is when you go from an older drive to a new one you can jumper the older one as slave, the software will see it and usually give you an option to transfer all data to the new drive. It works great and will transfer an existing, working OS as well in a fraction of the time it takes for DOS or Setup to just format. If you happen to have a copy of the Ultimate Boot CD (http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/), it has most of the manufacturer's sotware on it, and in some cases a couple of different versions. That's what I used on the 30GB drive mentioned above, quick and painless.

[Paul Komski]

I have System Commander.
Shouldn't need much else then - and its not a cheapie either.