When Fatter is Better: Installing and Using FAT32

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Joan Bard for TechRepublic.com

December 1, 1999

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What is FAT? FAT is the data store that enables your computer's file system to keep track of the location on the physical disk of all the pieces of a data file. Remember MS-DOS®? MS-DOS provided the code for the Windows file system—then a 16-bit system. This wasn't a problem as long as hard drives stayed under 2 GB. Way back in the MS-DOS age, putting as much as 100 MB on a single hard drive was considered—well, it wasn't considered.

But as we all know, things change. We evolve. And because of this, or in spite of it, hard drive manufacturers have increased storage to around 20 GB capacity on a single, physical disk. Which brings up the next issue: The FAT system forces us to partition the drive (using FDISK) into partitions of 2 GB or less. Furthermore, because you can have only a limited number of entries in a FAT drive, more space must be allocated to a single file. Not very efficient.

Microsoft® Windows® 98 takes care of this problem for us. The new FAT arrangement is called FAT32. It's much larger and can handle huge drives without partitioning them.

There are four major features of FAT32 that you need to be aware of:

  1. Large hard drive support

  2. Smaller cluster size

  3. Availability for large drives only

  4. Loss of dual boot and DriveSpace features

On This Page

Support for Large Hard Drives
Installing and Using FAT32
Virus Scanners and the FAT32 Installation
Using FDISK to Change the Partition Settings with a FAT32 Hard Drive
Using Disk Defragmenter for Optimization after Conversion
Conclusion

Support for Large Hard Drives

As I stated earlier, under FAT you'd have to partition a hard drive to 2 GB or less. Other than the fact that you could end up with a representation of each letter of the alphabet for your drives, you could also experience conflicts with Jaz and Zip drives and other peripherals that use the same drive letter designations. With FAT32, you can have one large drive with a single designation.

Smaller Cluster Size

A cluster is the smallest piece of hard drive space that can be allocated. FAT32 adds more space to FAT. By doing so, it reduces the minimum cluster size to 4K.

Availability for Large Drives Only

FAT32 is usable on hard drives that are 512 MB or larger. Smaller drives are not supported because their cluster size is around 4K.

Note that if you decide to install FAT32 on a PC with a FAT hard drive, the FAT hard drive will not be usable from the FAT32 drive. That goes for the reverse as well.

Loss of Dual Boot and DriveSpace Features

You will not be allowed to dual boot in Microsoft Windows NT®, and you cannot use DriveSpace on any machine that uses FAT32, although you will be able to dual boot in MS-DOS.

Installing and Using FAT32

A couple of notes before I go any further. Because boot records are being modified, some virus scanners may think that a virus has infected your machine. It's always best to turn virus protection programs off during the conversion. Most programs support FAT32; it just may be a matter of getting the manufacturer's update to the software.

Also, if you're using the Windows 98 utility Drive Converter (select Programs, Accessories, and System Tools from the Start menu), you'll need to be aware that this is a one-way process—there is no return to FAT once you've converted your drive to FAT32.

Now that you have an understanding of FAT and FAT32, let's convert a hard drive.

Not Sure if You're Already FAT32?

  1. First, start Windows Explorer from either My Computer or the Start menu.

  2. Next, right-click the drive you want to install FAT32 on.

  3. Select Properties from the shortcut menu.

  4. The Drive Property Sheet dialog box will appear.

Look at the General tab. Next to File System, you'll see either FAT or FAT32 if the new FAT has been installed.

Obviously, if you're already using FAT32, then you're also reaping the benefits. But if your dialog box displays FAT, then it's time to upgrade.

Converting Your FAT to FAT32

This is the easy part. Windows 98 gives you a wizard to help you with the conversion. To make the change to FAT32, perform the following steps.

  1. From the Start menu, select Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and Drive Converter (FAT32).

  2. A wizard dialog box will appear. The Details button brings up Windows Help on this topic, explaining the limitations of using FAT32. Click Next to begin the conversion process. You can also select Cancel should you wish to abort the process at this point. Doing so does not affect your hard drive.

  3. The next dialog box that appears is the Drive Selection box. If you have only one drive that is eligible to convert, then no drop-down list appears; only the letter of the drive. Otherwise, select the letter of the drive you want to convert from the drop-down list. Then click Next to continue.

  4. Next, and this is important: if you are installing FAT32 on a computer that utilizes the hibernation power conservation mode, you'll receive a warning dialog box that states you might lose data if your computer hibernates. You must disable the hibernation mode prior to continuing. If you're not sure how to do this, you'll want to contact your vendor or consult your machine's documentation to find out how to do so. Once you're sure this step is complete, click OK to proceed.

  5. If you're using antivirus protection, then you'll see the antivirus warning dialog box next. Disable the antivirus software, unless you're sure it will work with FAT32. Click OK to continue.

  6. Drive Converter checks for any known program conflicts, including disk utilities and antivirus software that are known to cause problems with FAT32. If any programs are found, they are displayed in a list box. You'll then be able to select from the list, click Details, and find out what known issues exist with regards to the program and FAT32. Click Cancel if you have known program conflicts and deal with these before continuing with the conversion. If you have no known conflicts, click Next to continue.

  7. You'll now see the Create Backup dialog box. If you haven't already done this, it's a good idea. When you select Create Backup, the conversion wizard disappears while the backup is completed. It reappears once you've finished the backups. Once it reappears, click Next to continue with the FAT32 conversion.

  8. Now you'll have one last chance to abort the conversion. Abort and nothing will change. But click Next and your machine restarts in MS-DOS mode and performs the conversion. Know this: Once the conversion starts, it cannot be stopped without causing damage to your hard drive. And it may take several hours to complete depending on the size of your drive and how many files are stored on it.

  9. Should there be any problems with the conversion, you will be given an opportunity to deal with them. If there are no file problems, then Drive Converter will complete and restart your PC to Windows 98. When this happens, you'll know that FAT32 is installed.

Important Note If bad sectors are encountered on your hard drive, Drive Converter will not run—even if you've marked them with Disk Defragmenter. In order to get around this, you'll have to go to MS-DOS mode (shut down and restart in MS-DOS mode) and type the following:

cvtl x: /cvt32

Where x: is the drive letter that you want to convert. Once you do this, Drive Converter will run and ignore the bad sectors.

Virus Scanners and the FAT32 Installation

As I mentioned before, some antivirus programs can cause problems with FAT32. While Microsoft recommends that you turn these off, some systems will not allow you to do this. Here's a way to deal with conflicting antivirus software.

  1. It's possible that you'll receive a message stating that the boot record of your hard drive has been modified. You'll have the option of preventing the modification or allowing it.

  2. You MUST allow the modification. Obviously, FAT32 is making changes to your drive. Some antivirus software recognizes this as a threat and wants to prevent it. If you abort at this point, you will cause your hard drive to become unusable.

  3. Always select Allow Modifications when this warning appears.

  4. Sometimes when you restart Windows 98 after the FAT32 conversion, you'll receive an error message indicating that FAT32 has been damaged. You will have the option to "repair" this damage.

  5. DO NOT REPAIR. Let me say that again. Do not repair any "damage" that your antivirus software "detects." Doing so will make your hard drive unusable.

  6. The best thing you can do should you receive these warnings is to remove your current antivirus software. Replace the old antivirus software with FAT32 compatible programs.

Once you've converted your drive, open the Drive Property dialog box (from Windows Explorer, right-click the drive icon you want to check, then select Properties) and look at all the new free space on your drive.

A Drive Compressed Using DriveSpace

If you've previously compressed your drive using DriveSpace, you'll have to uninstall DriveSpace in order to use FAT32.

  1. From the Start menu, select Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and DriveSpace.

  2. From the main dialog box of the application, select the disk drive you want to uncompress, then select Drive, and Uncompress.

  3. A dialog box appears. In it, you'll see the free space after uncompression. Should you not have enough room after uncompression for all of your files, then cancel the uncompression and remove some files before proceeding.

  4. Next, you'll receive a confirmation dialog box, and DriveSpace will uncompress the drive and remove the hidden logical drive for the physical device.

  5. You're done. Now just install FAT32 on your newly uncompressed hard drive.

Using FDISK to Change the Partition Settings with a FAT32 Hard Drive

FDISK is your friend here. OK, we all know what FDISK is, but here's a brief refresher. FDISK is an MS-DOS program that's used to create partitions. You may have used this before because of FAT's limitations. Now, because you're switching to FAT32, you'll need to use FDISK to change the partition settings. Here are the steps you'll need to take.

  1. Start an MS-DOS window.

  2. At the command prompt, type FDISK.

  3. When the text menu appears, type 5 at the command prompt and then the drive number that you want to partition. Just remember that drive C is drive number 1.

  4. If you want to delete an existing partition, type 3 at the command prompt.

  5. A list of logical partitions for the current physical hard drive appears. Select the ones that you want to remove and answer yes to the confirmation questions. Continue this process until there are no partitions on the drive, then exit to the main menu.

  6. From the main menu, type 1 at the prompt. A partition will be created—keep in mind that the default value for this is the entire hard drive. Answer yes to all the questions.

  7. Exit FDISK and reboot your computer.

  8. Start another MS-DOS window. At the command prompt, type FORMAT followed by the letter of the new drive partition. This will format your newly partitioned physical drive. Once it completes, you'll be ready to copy or move files onto the drive.

To make sure there are no problems with your conversion, run the ScanDisk utility on the converted drive.

Using Disk Defragmenter for Optimization after Conversion

As you're now aware, FAT32 uses a different cluster size than FAT. This means that you'll want to defragment your hard drive after converting to FAT32. Yes, this utility starts when the conversion is first made, but you can also do it later. To optimize your FAT32 hard drive, perform the following steps.

  1. From the Start menu, select Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and Disk Defragmenter.

  2. Select the drive that has been converted to FAT32.

  3. Next, the Disk Defragmenter dialog box appears (note that it may take some time because of heavy fragmentation).

  4. Once the process is completed, you may notice a considerable amount of free space available to you.

Congratulations! Your hard drive is now fully optimized for use with FAT32.

Conclusion

In this article, I've covered the basics of FAT32—what it is and why you should convert to it. I've also covered how to install FAT32 and then optimize its performance. If you're using Windows 98, then FAT32 is one sure way of increasing your hard drive's storage capacity.

Joan Bard has been a developmental programmer for the past 13 years. During that time, she has spent many hours pursuing the art of Zen and PC maintenance. She holds degrees in computer science and in business administration from the University of Louisville.

The above article is courtesy of TechRepublic https://www.techrepublic.com/ .

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