Compatibility Considerations
In order to maintain the greatest compatibility
possible with existing applications, networks and device drivers,
FAT32 was implemented with as little change as possible to Windows
95's existing architecture, internal data structures, Application
Programming interfaces (API's) and on-disk format. However, because
4 bytes are now required to store cluster values, many internal
add on-disk data structures and published API’s will fail
on FAT32 drives. Most applications will be unaffected by these
changes. Existing utilities and drivers should continue to work
on FAT32 drives. however, MS-DOS block device drivers (e.g. ASPIDISK.SYS)
and disk utilities for these will need to be revised to support
FAT32 drives.
All of Microsoft's bundled disk utilities
in Windows95b (format, FDISK, Defrag, MS-DOS and Windows Scandisk,
and DriveSpace) have been revised to work with FAT32. In addition,
Microsoft is working with leading device driver and disk utility
vendors to support them in revising their products to support
FAT32. Norton Utilities version 2 for Windows 95 fully supports
FAT32.
For most users with small cluster size
(4kb and below), FAT32 will have a negligible performance
impact. Some applications may see a slight performance gain from
FAT32. In other applications, particularly those heavily dependent
on large sequential write operations, FAT32 may result in a modest
performance degradation. The overall effect on raw disk performance
is less than 2% however, and the overall impact on application
performance as measured by Winstone is typically less than 1%.
Drive defragmenting becomes a lengthy process due to the large
number of clusters.
Dual-Boot
Computers
At this time, Windows 95 OEM Service Release
2 and Windows 98 are the only operating systems capable of accessing
FAT32 volumes. Windows 3.1, MS-DOS and the original version of
Windows 95 will not recognise FAT32 partitions, and thus they
are unable to boot from a FAT32 volume. Microsoft plans to add
support for FAT32 in Windows NT5, but at this time , Windows
NT is unable to access, or dual boot from FAT32 volumes. At minimum,
Microsoft will provide a utility to convert a FAT32 volume to
an NTFS volume in NT5.
Customers who run Windows 95 real mode
(for example, to run a game) will be able to use FAT32 volumes.
Windows95/98 protected DOS mode does include the FAT32 driver.
There are only currently three ways of
creating a FAT32 partition:-
1. In OEM Service release 2 or in Windows
98, if you run the FDISK utility on a large system with a drive
over 512MB, it will ask whether to enable large disk support.
If you answer yes, any partition you create that's greater than
5I2MB will be marked as a FAT32 partition. FDISK cannot convert
a FAT16 partition to FAT32, all contents of the drive are lost
if you use this method.
2. Partition Magic 3 or ‘CVT.EXE’
from Microsoft can convert partitions to FAT32 on-the-fly without
data loss, this is probably the best method currently available,
it can also convert back to FAT16 if required.
3. Windows 98 includes a graphical FAT32
conversion utility, which quickly and safely converts a hard
drive from the original FAT to FAT32. You can also start FAT32
Converter by clicking Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools,
and then clicking FAT32 Converter.
Return
to Menu