[LLXX]

Petr, on Nov 6 2006, 01:28 PM, said:

On the other hand I have no idea what should be the difference between W95 OSR2, W98, W98SE and WMe versions of FDISK (with exception for check for DOS version 7.1 or 8.0)? Is there different letter ordering? Are there different requirements on partition type, size, position? Or should I just make one version working on all systems?

Kill the versioncheck on and fix the ME version and release that. Supposedly M$ has already corrected some small bugs in the ME version so you won't need to do as much

[MDGx]

Updated installer with new files [11-7-2006]:

* Unofficial Windows 98/98 SP1/98 SE Display Errors FORMAT.COM + FDISK.EXE Fix:
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=85573
Direct download [110 KB, English]:
http://www.mdgx.com/files/FDSKFRMT.EXE
This NEWer FDISK.EXE Fix replaces OLDer Q263044 FDISK.EXE Fix:
http://support.micro....com/?id=263044

[XP-is-a-CRAP]

Quote

I have tried to correct wrong display in Windows 98 SE FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM.

Hmmm....

If you are a good programmer you could have a look at FreeDOS FDISK. It is mostly done, it works
(I tested up to 10GB), and full LBA48 support up to 2 TB (if anyone needs this, I don't) should be easily doable if not yet present. It unfortunately seems to lack a maintainer by now.

BTW, FreeDOS FDISK fakes the (slightly silly) M$-FDISK design ... and does not have advanced features like partition resising without data loss.

BTW: The newest FreeDOS DEFRAG 1.2.1 should support FAT32 now !!!

[Petr]

XP-is-a-CRAP, on Nov 7 2006, 11:11 PM, said:

If you are a good programmer you could have a look at FreeDOS FDISK. It is mostly done, it works
(I tested up to 10GB), and full LBA48 support up to 2 TB (if anyone needs this, I don't) should be easily doable if not yet present. It unfortunately seems to lack a maintainer by now.

I'm not good programmer (better to say no programmer at all).
I tested Q263044 fdisk and it worked with many partitions and with 250GB disk.
AFAIK there is nothing like LBA48 support in FDISK, LBA48 must be supported by BIOS.
The advantage of Q263044 fdisk is that it is localized to many languages.
Everything what I did was correction of display in case of disk above 99999 MB.
I have not heard about any problem with MS Q263044 FDISK yet.
In fact there is absolutely no feedback so I don't know if everything is correct or not.

Petr

[LLXX]

XP-is-a-CRAP, on Nov 7 2006, 05:11 PM, said:

Quote

I have tried to correct wrong display in Windows 98 SE FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM.

Hmmm....

If you are a good programmer you could have a look at FreeDOS FDISK. It is mostly done, it works
(I tested up to 10GB)

10GB isn't saying much... M$'s own FDISK has a higher limit than that

[patchworks]

I succesfully partitioned a 160 Gb (2x80 RAID 0) volume with Free FDISK...

Anyway i would ALWAYS prefer open source softwares over clodes ones, due to the possibility to adapt and improve them.

As already mentioned:

Quote

FreeDOS defrag is a project to recreate all of the features of the traditional defrag program. But it will go very much beyond the posibilities of the commercial product.

It will support FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 and will leave your long file names intact. Which means that it will still be a great utility for people using old versions of windows, like win95 or win98.

Official website

This post has been edited by patchworks: 08 November 2006 - 05:15 AM

[Andromeda43]

WOW! I thought I had this topic all figgered out, and then I read
this entire thread, front to back. Yeeeeks! I'm hosed!

Y'know, they say that ignorance is Bliss and I guess that's true.
I fixed the problem with the Windows 98/SE boot floppy that I've used for
years, not being able to set up LARGE HD's. I started using a Win-ME
boot disk. In spite of a few small partition size 'irregularities', the ME
FDISK and Format allowed me to set up my brand new 200 gig IDE drive
just last week. I know that format reports the wrong disk size, but that
just didn't bother me. It formatted the HD partition out to its max size
anyway, without ever a whimper.
Now I find I'm using faulty software. OH Yukkkkk!

I think I'll say a big "10-4" LLXX's comment "Kill the versioncheck on and fix the ME version and release that. Supposedly M$ has already corrected some small bugs in the ME version so you won't need to do as much."

I'm not sure if the 'versioncheck' would have to be "fixed" if the boot disk was just 100% ME from the format on....
I love my ME Boot disk, because it also installs CD drivers when it boots up my system.

I'd really love to have that "fixed" version of ME's Format. The ME format already does the job, but like what's already been said, it mucks up the numbers on the partition size.

I still use it exclusively, whether I'm formatting a HD for Winders 98 or Winders XP.

Heck, I'd even make a monetary contribution to someone fixing that annoying little glitch.

Y'all have a great day now, Y'hear?
Andromeda43

[Acheron]

Andromeda, if you had read this thread you would see that this fix has nothing to do with LBA. So this fix is purely cosmetical. However this fix still doesn't fix the display problem with HDD's over 60 GB, so it's pretty useless to me.

[Petr]

hp38guser, on Nov 8 2006, 04:01 PM, said:

Andromeda, if you had read this thread you would see that this fix has nothing to do with LBA. So this fix is purely cosmetical. However this fix still doesn't fix the display problem with HDD's over 60 GB, so it's pretty useless to me.

What "problem with HDD's over 60 GB"?

I don't know about any remaining problem? Please report it.

Petr

[Acheron]

Petr, on Nov 8 2006, 08:14 PM, said:

hp38guser, on Nov 8 2006, 04:01 PM, said:

Andromeda, if you had read this thread you would see that this fix has nothing to do with LBA. So this fix is purely cosmetical. However this fix still doesn't fix the display problem with HDD's over 60 GB, so it's pretty useless to me.

What "problem with HDD's over 60 GB"?

I don't know about any remaining problem? Please report it.

Petr

Quote

It was easy to correct this behavior by extending the size to 6 characters, this correction is already made in Windows Me FORMAT.COM. Unfortunately there is another limit - the size in megabytes is 16-bit integer and therefore the biggest displayable size is 65,535.99 MB. 80 GB disk appears as 10758 MB disk (76293 - 65536).
It would be possible to rewrite the display routine but I'm nit sure if it is worth the effort.

I was confused about FDISK and FORMAT. Do you have an alternative for the MS-DOS format tool?

[Petr]

hp38guser, on Nov 8 2006, 08:01 PM, said:

I was confused about FDISK and FORMAT. Do you have an alternative for the MS-DOS format tool?

Just few replies above:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&...st&p=582335

Petr

[PROBLEMCHYLD]

PROBLEMCHYLD, on Nov 6 2006, 03:46 PM, said:

Does this means Q263044 is obselete?

I hate to quote myself but it seem like my post was ignored.

[soporific]

PROBLEMCHYLD, on Nov 9 2006, 06:16 AM, said:

Does this means Q263044 is obselete?

MDGX and I think it is, and my updates list now reflects this (and I was reminded by the note on MDGX's site - thank the universe for MDGx!!!)

[patchworks]

I wanna suggest you to check the ROSapps: there are many interesting -GPL- tools (such as chkdsk) on the sysutils and cmsutils dirs.

I also think that Package manager (SVN dir) and fraginator could be useful too.

[erpdude8]

Andromeda43, on Nov 8 2006, 08:55 AM, said:

I still use it exclusively, whether I'm formatting a HD for Winders 98 or Winders XP.

speaking of formatting hard drives under XP, Andromeda43, WinXP's disk utilities can only format & partition FAT32 volumes up to 32 Gb. If you want to partition and format FAT32-based drives beyond 32 GB you must use FDISK and FORMAT tools from a Win98 or WinME boot disk.

see these articles on the limitations of FAT32 file system for XP:
http://support.micro...kb/301340/en-us
http://support.micro...kb/314463/en-us

[jaclaz]

erpdude8 said:

If you want to partition and format FAT32-based drives beyond 32 GB you must use FDISK and FORMAT tools from a Win98 or WinME boot disk.

Yep, or use this FREEWARE OPEN SOURCE utility:
http://www.ridgecrop...fat32format.htm

Quote

Actually, looking back at the Microsoft comment, if I could format the volume myself, all would be OK. Fat32 is pretty simple, so it occured to me to write a fast format routine to do the job.

jaclaz

[patchworks]

erpdude8, on Nov 3 2006, 05:03 PM, said:

great points, Petr. Mr. "patchworks" here doesnt get it. Free FDISK is OUTDATED and cant support HDs beyond 128Gb, hence 48bit LBA support is barely non-existent (or at least buggy) in Free FDISK. And documentation on Free FDISK is kinda lame and does not mention full 48bit LBA support on large HDs.

More good reasons to upgrade it !

jaclaz, on Nov 30 2006, 07:51 PM, said:

Yep, or use this FREEWARE OPEN SOURCE utility:
http://www.ridgecrop...fat32format.htm

Cool, never heard it.

Well, this inspired me an idea:
Does someone here remembers the good old 2M, FDFormat or 800 tools ? (check out here or on this dir)

It would be great to have an open source "super format" utility !

This post has been edited by patchworks: 03 December 2006 - 06:53 AM

[jaclaz]

patchworks said:

It would be great to have an open source "super format" utility !

Well, if it's allright a FREEWARE (not "Open Source") one, we already have it:
http://users.pandora...plications.html
http://users.pandora...osman/dcopy.zip

Quote

DCOPY is a fast disk copy program for DOS (does not run under Windows NT). It can copy, format, verify and compare floppy disks. It reads almost all disk formats (except XDM). It also supports non-DOS disks. You can also create disk images and automatically zip them.

Please note that due to HAL limitations in the NT structure, it is NOT possible to access tracks beyond 80 on floppy disks under NT/2K/XP/2003, so anything that uses more than that can only be read in DOS (possibly with fdread or other similar program will be needed) or in Linux.

See also this for more info on floppy formats and programs:
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=81068

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 04 December 2006 - 09:37 AM

[patchworks]

jaclaz, on Dec 4 2006, 04:33 PM, said:

Well, if it's allright a FREEWARE (not "Open Source") one, we already have it:
http://users.pandora...plications.html
http://users.pandora...osman/dcopy.zip

Freeware IS NOT open source...

Btw, i don't think DCOPY can compete with 2M... no other program can !

jaclaz, on Dec 4 2006, 04:33 PM, said:

Please note that due to HAL limitations in the NT structure, it is NOT possible to access tracks beyond 80 on floppy disks under NT/2K/XP/2003, so anything that uses more than that can only be read in DOS (possibly with fdread or other similar program will be needed) or in Linux.

Even if i really like multiplatform software, i hope to see the "super format" at least on ReactOS (has it the same HAL limits ?)...

[LLXX]

jaclaz, on Dec 4 2006, 10:33 AM, said:

Please note that due to HAL limitations in the NT structure, it is NOT possible to access tracks beyond 80 on floppy disks under NT/2K/XP/2003, so anything that uses more than that can only be read in DOS (possibly with fdread or other similar program will be needed) or in Linux.

Do you have any more details on this? For some reason I think a one-byte patch might be all that's required to make it work... (yes, that's what I'm planning to do if it's an easy fix)