[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Windows 3.0 destroying data on >32 meg disk

lord@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dave Lord) (07/03/90)

The following is from a recent INFORMATIONWEEK.
In the 'Top of the Week' section there is an article called 'Crack in
Windows'. Quoted without permission:


   Many users have confirmed that Windows 3.0 corrupts hard disks larger
   than 32 Mbytes that have not been formatted with DOS 4.01 or higher,
   Dalton says.  Until the release of MS-DOS 4.01, users with large hard
   disks had to look beyond Microsoft because DOS could not create
   partitions larger than 32 Mbytes. 

   <A lot of other stuff follows, mostly blasting Microsoft for knowing
   about this problem and not warning people.>


My question is do they really mean PARTITIONS bigger than 32Meg?
I have a 60 Meg disk Initialized under DOS 3.3 as two partitions,
will I have a problem? Also, another system I use has both Interactive Unix
and DOS. The only way to create the DOS partition is with Unix (Although
I could perhaps delete it and recreate it with DOS). Does anyone know the
real story?

sfl@PacBell.COM (Sharon F Lewis) (07/05/90)

In article <3450@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> lord@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dave Lord) writes:
>
>The following is from a recent INFORMATIONWEEK.
>
>My question is do they really mean PARTITIONS bigger than 32Meg?
>I have a 60 Meg disk Initialized under DOS 3.3 as two partitions,
>will I have a problem? Also, another system I use has both Interactive Unix
>and DOS. The only way to create the DOS partition is with Unix (Although
>I could perhaps delete it and recreate it with DOS). Does anyone know the
>real story?

I don't remember the whole story, but this discussion has been going on for
weeks.

Anyway, I have 3.31 Dos, with a 40mb drive formatted with disk manager to a .9
and 41m drives.  I have been using Windows 3.0 for more than a week with   
no problem. My primary Windows application is Excel and I have a checkbook
spreadsheet that is about 100K and I have been updating it with absolutely no
problem.
-- 
Sharon Lewis   sfl@pbhyg.pacbell.com

ericr@hpvcper.HP.COM (Eric Ross) (07/06/90)

The problem occurs when you have greater than 1024 cyclinders on your disk
and you use a "permanent" swap file in Enhanced Mode.  As long as you use
a "temporary" swap file you should be ok.

Eric Ross
ericr@vcd.hp.com