Hard Drive says 28 GB less than what I have

[chriscry]

I just installed a brand new 30 gb hard drive and when installing a program it shows I have low space avail.When I click on "my computer" icon (win98)it shows its only a 1.99 gb hard drive.It also says its a fat drive ,whatever that is.
Is there anyway to change this setting and still save my very important files?
thanx,chris

[sleddog]

Sounds like the drive was formatted with a FAT16 partition, which cannot exceed 2gb. For partitions larger than 2gb you must use FAT32.

Either you wipe the partition and start over, making sure to select "large disk support" when using FDISK, or try a utility that can convert a FAT16 parition to FAT32. Partition Magic can do this, and can also resize the partition to the size you want. PM is commercial software; someone else may have a freeware alternative.

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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)

[Paleo Pete]

Win 98 usually has a FAT converter that should work. If it's not there, under Start\Programs\Accessories\System Tools open Control Panel and install it from Add/Remove Programs.

sleddog's suggestion for Partition Magic is worth looking into also, I've never used it or the Windows Fat Converter, never had to, but from what I've seen from other folks, Partition Magic is said to work very well.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[Reid]

I have used Win98SE's FAT Converter on two systems with no problem, but always consider any partition method to be risky. Since you have "very important files", back them up first. Back them up even if you don't re-partition. There are too many tales of lost data because we tend to forget doing backups.

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reido@my-deja.com

Friends don't let friends install Windows ME

[chriscry]

I tried doing the "Start\Programs\Accessories\System Tools\Drve Converter"
way and everything went fine, but it still reads 1.99 GB. What else should I try?
chris

[sleddog]

Well, now you have a 2gb FAT32 partition and 28gb of unused diskspace.

As I said before, to change the *size* of the 2gb partition you need software like Partition Magic.

Your other option is to add additional partitions to the drive. These additional partitions will occupy the unused diskspace.

- Boot your computer to a DOS prompt using a boot floppy disk (this floppy should have FDISK.exe and FORMAT.COM on it).
- At the A:\ prompt type FDISK
- Choose the option to "display partition information".
- You *should* see 1 primary partion of 2gb and the rest unused space.
- Go back to the menu and choose the option to create a new extended partition.
- When that's done you create a "logical drive" in this extended partition (this will become drive D in Windows.)
You can create just one logical drive, or two or more (which will become drives E, F etc. in Windows).

After you're done with fdisk you *must* reboot. I'd advise rebooting again to the bootable floppy. Then you format the new drive to prepare it for data:

A:\FORMAT D:

After the format is done you can reboot you machine normally to the harddrive. The new drive(s) will be available in Windows.



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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)