Dual Boot Between Windows 95 and Windows 3.x Maximize Partition Space Michael Hayman
This part concerns hard disks over 511 MB in size. If you partition a hard disk of greater than 512 MB with one partition only, you'll get 16KB cluster sizes. However, if you partition it to 511 MB maximum in one partition, you'll get 8KB cluster sizes, saving a great deal of lost space on your hard disk.
To expand on this slightly, MS-DOS works by allocating disk space for files in units called clusters. On any MS-DOS disk the smallest file, even one byte, will be allocated on entire cluster to itself, the remainder of the cluster becoming lost space. If a file occupies four entire clusters, and only a fraction of a fifth, you'd lose all the space allocated to five clusters in total. It's therefore useful to keep your cluster sizes as small as possible to minimize this wastage, and maximize your data storage potential.
Before carrying out this procedure, you should plan how large you would like your partitions and what drive letters you want to use on each. Consider the possibility of multiple booting with other operating systems, and how you will accomplish this. For tips on this very subject, check out:
Do a full backup of your PC (be sure to make a note of the disk space).
Boot from the A drive with a system disk that has FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM on it.
When the system has started, type FDISK at the command prompt, and then press [enter]
Select Option 3 - Delete Partition.
Delete Primary Partition 1.
Create Partition step 1.
Create Primary Partition step 1. When prompted 'Max Size', enter [N]. You'll then be prompted to enter the partition size in megabytes, so enter 510 and press [enter].
You now have to make the new partition active, so select Option 2, then enter (1) for the partition to be made active.
At this point, you can create further partitions if you wish. Otherwise, exit out of FDISK.EXE by pressing [ESC].
Reboot your PC with the system disk still in the A Drive.
You'll now have to format the new C drive, so type the following at the command prompt:FORMAT C: /U /S (the U switch carries out an unconditional format, while the S switch copies the Operating System files IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM to the root of the new boot drive). Proceed to format any other drives you created.
