Some Guy
2017-11-02 02:59:03 UTC
Basically, there's the question.
Is there any DOS program (ie - 16-bit program / utility that runs on DOS
version 7.10 or 8.00 aka win98/winme DOS) that will format a volume with
a user-defined cluster size (1k, 2k, 4k, 8k, etc, up to 32k) without
imposing what we know to be absurd rules or limits (ie trying to not
exceed a certain total-cluster-count) ?
And with the ability to aligning the clusters on sector boundaries?
There was a program called "OFORMAT.COM" (7/17/2004) that, according to
this:
========
This utility is based upon the Windows 98 Second Edition FORMAT tool but
has these important modifications to allow it to work efficiently in a
system manufacturers scripting environment:
• OFORMAT does not prompt for confirmation before formatting a disk.
• OFORMAT does not perform verification of sectors. This makes it
significantly faster than the conventional FORMAT utility.
• The new /A command-line option causes OFORMAT to align FAT data
clusters at a specified sector. Specifically, the /A:8 option
can be used to format the volume so that the FAT data clusters
are aligned at 4K boundaries.
Important: Because sectors are 512 bytes, the OFORMAT command must be
used with the /A:8 option to create a FAT volume that can be efficiently
converted to NTFS.
============
That program will not run on a PC booted into DOS 7.10 (win-98 dos) - it
claims incompatible DOS version. It will run on DOS 8.00 (Win-ME dos)
but I get a divide-by-zero error when I try to format a 250 gb volume.
Regular dos 7.10 format.com is fine formatting such a volume.
The conversion to NTFS is of no interest to me. I just want to create
FAT32 volumes with a smaller cluster size and with sector alignment.
Is there any DOS program (ie - 16-bit program / utility that runs on DOS
version 7.10 or 8.00 aka win98/winme DOS) that will format a volume with
a user-defined cluster size (1k, 2k, 4k, 8k, etc, up to 32k) without
imposing what we know to be absurd rules or limits (ie trying to not
exceed a certain total-cluster-count) ?
And with the ability to aligning the clusters on sector boundaries?
There was a program called "OFORMAT.COM" (7/17/2004) that, according to
this:
========
This utility is based upon the Windows 98 Second Edition FORMAT tool but
has these important modifications to allow it to work efficiently in a
system manufacturers scripting environment:
• OFORMAT does not prompt for confirmation before formatting a disk.
• OFORMAT does not perform verification of sectors. This makes it
significantly faster than the conventional FORMAT utility.
• The new /A command-line option causes OFORMAT to align FAT data
clusters at a specified sector. Specifically, the /A:8 option
can be used to format the volume so that the FAT data clusters
are aligned at 4K boundaries.
Important: Because sectors are 512 bytes, the OFORMAT command must be
used with the /A:8 option to create a FAT volume that can be efficiently
converted to NTFS.
============
That program will not run on a PC booted into DOS 7.10 (win-98 dos) - it
claims incompatible DOS version. It will run on DOS 8.00 (Win-ME dos)
but I get a divide-by-zero error when I try to format a 250 gb volume.
Regular dos 7.10 format.com is fine formatting such a volume.
The conversion to NTFS is of no interest to me. I just want to create
FAT32 volumes with a smaller cluster size and with sector alignment.