Is my BIOS outdated?? (W98)

[ciscoman1]

This is what is happening on my pc. I have a C:\ active partition(Fat 32) which is 8.5 Giga bytes and when I save a small text file it will use 8KB's of space. My D:\ partition is Win2K Server with NTFS, and E:\ which is a Fat32 partition of 7.5 giga bytes and when I save a small text file in the E:\ partition it will default to 4KB's of disk space. So why does my C:\ partition default to an 8KB's of disk spaced used(per file size)????? What's strange is if I CUT a small file on the C drive and paste to the E drive the file will go to 4KB's, but if I put the file back on the C drive again it will be 8KB's again
ciscoman1

[BertImmenschuh]

ciscoman, if your computer is working fine, you probably don't need to update the BIOS. As to the hard drive, I believe you have hit the 8/8.4GB breakpoint in cluster size. There are several break points where the cluster size changes, even with NTFS. Holler if you want a chart.

[Andy-S]

FAT32 has a default cluster size of 8K for drives greater than 8GB. NTFS has a default cluster size of 4K. This is why you are seeing the discrepancies you have noticed.

[ciscoman1]

To Bert
The test file is only 21 bytes but on the C partition it uses 8KB's and I think that is a big waste of space. I am going to get Partition Magic and either or both change the C partition to maybe 8.3 Giga bytes and add the extra to either D or E, OR change the cluster size to 4KB's as I've heard of other people doing it and they reported no problems. Does this sound workable and what would be my best option???
ciscoman

[ciscoman1]

To Andy
The test file I used was 21 bytes and on the C(Fat 32) partition it defaults to 8KB's and then I cut the test file and put it on my E partition(Fat 32) 7.9 GB and the test file defaults to 4KB's in size. I only mentioned the NTFS partition to say what my HD partitions consisted of totally.

[ciscoman1]

To Andy or Bert
So even with a new bios(2002 bios date) any partition over 8 GB's will default to 8 KB's cluster size??
ciscoman1

[BertImmenschuh]

Yes. The cluster size of the hard drive/s has not much to do with the BIOS. The BIOS just has to 'see' the proper size of the drive, then the OS takes over.

[BertImmenschuh]

There is always 'slack' or wasted space with any hard drive simply because regardless of the file size, it occupies at least 1 and usually more than 1 cluster. Two files cannot occupy the same cluster.

The only way around it is to compress the hard drive. That creates one BIG file and decompresses files 'on the fly' as you access them. Downside, lose 1 byte out of that file and the whole thing may be GONE. I've never liked to compress hard drives, files or folders yes.

In your case it may be more efficient to have 7.9GB partitions and any small amount left over add to the NTFS partition.

[Andy-S]

Sorry Ciscoman, I missed that in the original post. I also missed Bert's post that was done before mine. It's just been one of those days. Looks like Bert has provided you with the information you need.

Cheers
Andy

[ciscoman1]

Bert
Are you saying that you don't think you can change the clulster size with Partition Magic to 4KB's instead of the 8 KB's? Probably my best bet would be to repartition the C partition to 7.9 GB's with Partition Magic(when I get it, that is). Do you agree with repartitioning would be best????
ciscoman1

[ciscoman1]

To Andy
No problem, thanks for posting
ciscoman1

[BertImmenschuh]

It has to do with cylinders, head, and sectors on the hard drive. These are controlled by the manufacturer and usually cannot be overcome. For example, I have in front of me a Maxtor 8.4GB drive, Cylinders 116383, Heads 16, Sectors 63. These can't be changed and still get the full capacity. The drive can be 'lied' to and get less, but only if BIOS doesn't support the drive and you have to use an overlay.

There's certain conventions that we have to live with regarding hard drives and for practical purposes it is the cluster size relative to the partition size and the OS.

In the interest of saving space, I would run 7.9GB partitions on FAT32 and the balance on NTFS. PartitionMagic usually will allow you to resize without losing data. A power failure in the middle of changing will be disastrous. I use a UPS for those kind of things.


Here is some good reading:
<a target="_blank" href=http://www.wdc.com/support/tips/index.asp?tip=68>http://www.wdc.com/support/tips/index.asp?tip=68</a>


The 'edited' time below is off by 1 hour.
<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by BertImmenschuh on 03/05/02 16:41.</FONT></P>

[BertImmenschuh]

<a target="_blank" href=http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/part.htm>http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/part.htm</a>

[ciscoman1]

To Bert
I probably will repartition to 7.9 GB's on C and then make a new Fat 32 partition and just add another drive letter as I only use the NTFS as a study guide to do lessons and examples for my MCSE 2000 tests and would rather have disk space I can actually use for everyday stuff. Thanks for your advise.
ciscoman1

P.S. Thanks for the link as there is some good info there.

[BertImmenschuh]

Glad to help.

[ciscoman1]

Bert
Remember the other day you said not to download the Intel Update from the Windows Update Site,(which I almost did but stopped it from installing) there is a fix for people whose systems got messed up from downloading. So if you here of any unfortunate souls send them to this link
To all the poor souls who installed the "Intel Corporation -
Storage" update from the Windows 98 update site and could not
uninstall it go to the Intel web site
http://support.intel.com/design/software/drivers/platform/inf.htm
and download the file "infinst_enu.zip." Unzipping and
running setup will restore your system.
See ya ciscoman1

[BertImmenschuh]

Thanks.