> Nick Rudd wrote:
>
> yes i have only windows 98 installed on my computer. I was wondering
> if there was any way that i could convert FAT 32 back into FAT16
> without reinstalling windows.
>
Yeah there is a way. There may be others, but this way is the only way I
know - and doesn't require purchasing any proprietary software :-)
I am sorry if I have made any errors - dont blame me, it is late, I am
tired. It is possible to do this, though noone seems to have bothered to
tell him / thought of it.
This requires you to be using ~80 MB (the size of a basic linux distro)
less than one half of your hard disk (ie have 1/2 your harddisk+80Mb
free ). Also you will need some extra space, because FAT32 is more
efficient than FAT16 - the exact amount depends on the size of your
harddisk, and the specific files on your harddrive.
Use fips from dos to reduce your win98 to the smallest size possible.
Then, you need to install linux into the ~80MB on your hard disk. (I
would suggest creating partitions at the end of the free space not the
beginning - if you can use partition manager to mess around with them
later this could make it easier to resize them)
in the spare disk space on your harddrive, create a new DOS partition
(be sure only to create a fat16 partition :-) )
format this new partition under linux.
mount your new and old DOS partitions under linux, and with a cp -av
<old-dos-partition-mount-point>/* <new-dos-partition-mount-point> you
will be able to copy all of your windows files from the Fat32 partion to
the new fat16 partition.
[BTW all of this is without a reboot :-)]
Now you need to set the new partition active with fdisk or cfdisk or
sthg, then boot of a DOS floppy to make the new partition bootable???
then if you reboot, you should come up under windows on your new, FAT16
partition.
when you are sure that everything is working correctly, you can delete
your old FAT32 partition, and reinstall linux on that partition, and you
will be able to install X-windows etc and see how your computer should
really work.
Of course it would probably be quicker to back up your entire hard disk
onto floppy, by hand, then reformat your harddrive [or even spend some
money on some mass storage device and back it up onto that] but you
asked.
frankie
Always glad to be of help :-)
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