TO VERIFY WIN 98 O/S : DATE = 5-11-98 IN COMMAND FOLDER; TO VERIFY WIN 98 SE O/S : DATE = 4-23-99 IN COMMAND FOLDER; TO VERIFY WINDOWS ME O/S : DATE = 6-8-00 IN COMMAND FOLDER; TO VERIFY WIN 2000 O/S : Date = 12-7-99 in windows\system;
My Computer = 4.10.1998
My Computer = 4.10.2222A
My Computer = 4.90.3000
My Computer = 5.00.2195
TO VERIFY WIN 95B:
1. DO FDISK ( use the new FAT 32 FDISK version ) - IT WILL SHOW FAT 32 ( ASSUMING INITIALLY you told fdisk to allow for HD's above 2.0 gb in the 1st setup screen which gives you a choice to do so: " Do you wish to enable large disk support?")
2. Do VER command : last 4 digits = .1111
3. In My Computer: left click "My Computer" , RT. click C:\ drive/properties. Under Label it will say FAT 32.
4. "My Computer"/properties : .950B
5. OSR 2.1 = .1212(LAST 4 DIGITS) AT DOS "VER" COMMAND
6. DATE = 8-24-96 IN COMMAND FOLDER ( THE ORIG. WIN 95 DATE = 7/11/95 )
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MORE INFO :
OSR2: Win95-B
To see if you do have FAT 16 or 32 installed, double click My Computer, right click C:Drive(or whatever you called it), and select "Properties from the drop down. Right there on the "General" tab, just below "Label:", it will say what "Type:" of file system is installed. If it says- "Type: Local Disk (FAT 32)" you can relax.
Also, use "Chkdsk" to compare cluster size in relation to your Hard drive size.
FAT 16 and FAT 32
FAT 16 and FAT 32 are simply file allocation systems (or tables) that works much the same way as postal codes/zip codes do. Once you save a file or load a program to your HDD, it is given an address and this address is recorded as to allow for quick retrieval upon command. The FAT system also divides up your hard drive into clusters (allocation units). These clusters could perhaps be compared to the hexagonal shaped spaces in a bees nest. When you store files and data on your hard drive, these clusters begin to fill up.
FAT 16, which is the standard file system used by DOS, OS2 as well as Windows 3.x, 95a and NT, can only be used to access hard drives as large as 2GB(Gigabytes) in size. This became a small problem what with the onslaught of the huge hard drives on the market today. People that have large hard drives (over 2GB) would have to partition the drive up into smaller drives no larger than 2GBs or the OS(operating system) wouldn't be able to detect anything above the 2GB range! Another draw back of FAT 16 is the size of the clusters it lays out on the hard drive. Here are some examples of how FAT 16 divides your hard drive:
An important fact about these clusters is that if you load a program or file onto your 2GB HDD that is, for example, 32800(32.8K) bytes in size, 32 bytes which wouldn't fit into the first cluster overspill into the next cluster. That cluster is now considered full by the FAT system, and cannot be used to store any more data, but is only using 1 thousanth of it's capacity! Now you can imagine how much wasted space you could have on a 2GB HDD using the FAT 16 file system.
Enter FAT 32, the new and improved file alocation system utility which ships with OSR2(Windows95b). FAT 32 breaks up a HDD into much more, smaller clusters and therefore uses disk space effectively. The FAT 32 system can utilize up to 2 Terabytes(2000 GB) as a single drive. Here are samples of how FAT 32 divides HDD space:
If you take the same 32800 byte file from the first example and install it on a 2GB HDD utilizing FAT 32, you will again have the 32 byte overflow, but instead of wasting a 32K cluster, it wastes only a 4K cluster. 75% is quite a significant gain when talking about HDD space! To determine which FAT you are using double click "My Computer", right click C:\Drive and select "Properties". Right near the top of the property sheet it will say either Fat 16 or Fat 32.
It's been said that FAT 32 makes your machine work harder by increasing file managements workload, due to many more allocation units, and therefore performance is supposed to suffer. I have not benchmarked both systems to varify the difference, but I myself can see no performance loss. Note: On the same 2GB HDD, FAT 16 creates roughly 64,000 clusters at 32,768 bytes each; whereas FAT 32 would create roughly 513,000 clusters at 4096 bytes each. Hence the extra read time and slight performance loss!
( NOTE : WINDOWS 95A ( FAT 16 ) will not recognize above a 2 GB partition )
( NOTE : ROM BIOS chips dated late 1996 & newer are flashable to allow for recognition of much larger hard drives - not guaranteed to always work however. )
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