Hi Harman,
Thanks for the very comprehensive explanation. Yes, now the 16 bit vs the 32 bit
is clear to me. And it's explained a number of PC related questions that I had in my
head but never got clarification.
I have been reliabily told that the EOS 10D supports FAT32, so I'm keen to format
my 4GB microdrive CF II card (it's one of those Hitachi 4GB units that you find easily
on eBay) to 64KB cluster size.
But no matter how hard I try, I can't format it for 64K.
I get an error message saying that this block size is too big.
The command that I use from a command.com window within Windows 2000 is: format (drive letter): /fs:FAT32 /v:EOS_DIGITAL /a:64K
It starts the format, but when it gets to 99%, it coughs up that error.
Very frustrating...... !!!!
Can anyone help?
Thanks in advance,
Lawrance
----Original Message Follows---- From: Harman Bajwa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: EOS FAT vs FAT32 - any difference? Basically, FAT (16 bit addressing): It is the older brother of FAT32 wherein the file is *always* stored in multiples of 32KBytes (yes even if the file is 1byte in size it will occupy a minimum of 32KBytes). The maximum number of such "storage units" (or in technical jargon - clusters) is limited to 65536 such clusters (because of the fact that only 16 bits can be used to address any single cluster). Hence the maximum disk size that will be usable in this case is 32K x 64K = 2GB. Beyond that the disk will need to be partitioned (or others means to extend the capacity with larger cluster sizes etc.)
FAT32 (32 bit addressing): Designed mainly to overcome the limitatiosn posed by the 16 bit addressable FAT system, it enables upto 4 TBytes of storage and cluster sizes as small as 4KBytes and support for long file names and some other improvements.
If your card is not above 2GB, you do not need to format it in FAT32 just to be able to use it. OTOH, even a 1GB can be formatted in FAT32 with the advantage that at most < 4KBytes of storage will be wasted in storing any potential file (vs < 32KB in FAT). However, the device which is going use such a formnatted drive must be able to read and use a card formatted in FAT32.
- - Harman
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