mdvries@cwi.nl (Michiel de Vries) (06/24/88)
I just acquired a hard disk, Seagate 238R (30 Mb) with Adaptec ACB-2072 RLL controller. According to the Adaptec Installation guide, it is possible to split the physical hard drive in (max. 8) logical drives (this is NOT the PARTITIONING, that is done through FDISK, but a separation of the single physical drive in proportional smaller logical drives C:, D:, etc.!). This worked in my case only for 2 logical drives. The controller accepts a division in 3 or 4 parts, and seems to (low level) format them all correctly, but afterward DOS en FDISK only recognise two logical drives (C: & D:). The space of the other partitions is lost. My system: XT-clone, 640 k, Phoenix BIOS, PC-DOS 3.2, 2 floppies, etc. Pretty straightforward. Anyone has a explanation or solution? By the way, a couple of related questions about the same topic: -- Is there a general option about the pro's & con's of this low level partitioning, versus the use of directories, possibly with the declaration of logical drives through SUBSTitute? Reduced fragmentation? Speed (seems unlikely) ? (Of course the partitioning is necessary for >30 Mb drives.) -- Does there exist a program (is it possible?) to change the low level partitioning without having to do the complete low-level formatting. (would save a hell of a time, if you have to experiment). Just for curiosity. -- Is it possible to let DOS make more then 1 DOS partition? Why doesn't this work with FDISK -- Is the low-level partitioning specific for the Adaptec controller, or standard? -- Any pointers to a description of this low level partitioning? Pleas Email your response; I'll summarise through Email or Net. Thanks a lot.
brown@nicmad.UUCP (Mr. Video) (06/28/88)
In article <438@turing.cwi.nl> mdvries@turing.UUCP (Michiel de Vries) writes:
<-- Is it possible to let DOS make more then 1 DOS partition? Why
< doesn't this work with FDISK
PC-DOS 3.3 supports what is known as extended DOS partitions. You can
create as many partitions as you would like, as long as each partition is
less than or equal 32 MB. (Compaq MS-DOS 3.31 allows 512 MB partitions.)
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