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Thread ID: 36712 2003-08-18 09:11:00 Second hard disk drive installation darrell (4426) Press F1
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168412 2003-08-18 09:11:00 Hi

I've put an additional (new) 120Gb hard drive in my machine. I'm running W98. I've initialised (right word?) it using 'fdisk' in MSDOS. Then I formatted it (right click and "format" in My Computer). The new drive has been seen by the system and given a "D" drive letter. So it seems to have gone OK apart from the fact that it's showing in My Computer as a 1.9Gb drive instead of a 120Gb!!

Have I done something stupid?

Cheers
Darrell
darrell (4426)
168413 2003-08-18 23:12:00 Did you enable large disk support during FDISK? If not, maxium partition is 2GB per partition :) SKT174 (1319)
168414 2003-08-18 23:44:00 i would also ditch fdisk and use a better partitioning program (ranish is a free one) and partition the disk into more useable parts. check out the faq's. tweak'e (174)
168415 2003-08-19 00:41:00 for a HDD of that size it pays to partition into smaller sizes 20 and 50 50 is good easiest to use partition magic can help if you are in wgtn kiwibeat (304)
168416 2003-08-19 04:53:00 > i would also ditch fdisk and use a better partitioning program (ranish is a free one)

If I may be so bold as to ask, what would your opinion be of this site's (http://fdisk.radified.com/) view of fdisk being the best one to use?



FDISK's #1 strength is compatibility. Other partitioning utilities [such as the wonderful Partition Magic] offer far more features, such as the ability to modify partitions non-destructively, and are easier to use. They may look prettier, but none offer better compatibility .. with the infinite number of system configurations possible .. taking into account both hardware & software.

I use PM myself [everyone should keep a copy handy]. But I only use it when FDISK is not an option. And I *always* use FDISK to partition new hard drives. Microsoft's FDISK is the closest thing there is to a partitioning standard. It has been around since the days when dinosaurs walked the earth .. well, almost. It is the least likely to generate quirky compatibility issues.


(bold highlight mine)
Fire-and-Ice (3910)
168417 2003-08-19 07:29:00 Also make sure your fdisk program is not an older version (eg 95). I got caught out by this, and couldn't understand why I kept getting this tiny partition. Jen C (20)
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