stephenc@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Stephen Chung) (10/11/90)
Hi NetLanders, I am currently running DOS 4.01 on an 80M IDE drive. I want to create a separate partition (maybe 10M or so) so that DOS 3.3 can recognize it when I boot it up from a floppy. The problem: I don't want to backup my hard disk (I have about 40M of stuff and no tape backup unit). Somebody suggests to me that I: 1. Defragmentize the hard drive, push all files to the front 2. Use fdisk to create a partition at the end or Modify the partition table using a sector editor I am a little skeptical about this because the manual says that using fdisk will trash all data on the hard disk. Does anyone know whether it is save to do that? Thanks a lot. Reply to this account is appreciated. - Stephen
phys169@canterbury.ac.nz (10/15/90)
In article <1990Oct11.144632.6332@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>, stephenc@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Stephen Chung) writes: > I am currently running DOS 4.01 on an 80M IDE drive. I want to create > a separate partition (maybe 10M or so) so that DOS 3.3 can recognize > it when I boot it up from a floppy. The problem: I don't want to > backup my hard disk (I have about 40M of stuff and no tape backup unit). > Somebody suggests to me that I: > > 1. Defragmentize the hard drive, push all files to the front > 2. Use fdisk to create a partition at the end or > Modify the partition table using a sector editor > The only way it could avoid ruining the data there already is if the new partition is created ("by hand", e.g. Norton's utility) overlapping the end of the existing partition, and you make an imaginary file in the original partition taking all of the used space. Otherwise shrinking the first partition will make the FAT wrong (the 2nd copy will want to start earlier on the disk). A very messy operation. Best to back up and repartition, unfortunately. Why do you want to boot up on Dos 3.3? Mark Aitchison, Physics, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.